The World Poker Tour has set anchor in Prague, the Czech Republic for a week of poker that has so far proven to be pretty exciting. The King’s Casino in Prague is the location for the €3000 Main Event that has drawn a quality field amongst its competitors, including several players in pursuit of the major Player of the Year titles.
Joshua Cranfield was far and away the leader of the pack as Day 2 opened up, but there were plenty of challenges among the 147 runners still in the hunt. Such names as Steve O’Dwyer, Anthony Zinno, Dylan Linde and others were sitting with decent stacks, while players such as Stephen Chidwick, Ole Schemion and Niall Farrell decided to take advantage of the final late registration call of the tournament. By the time these gentlemen were set, the total field rounded out to 256 entries and built a €768,000 prize pool.
Cranfield came out of the gate fast, rivering a full house to take down Remigiusz Wyrzykiewicz and his massive stack was absorbed by Cranfield. Linde was able to chip up early but was nailed in a massive cooler when his pocket Aces were run down by Yann Dion’s pocket Kings early in the day’s play. That would basically end the tournament for Linde as he would depart the King’s Casino soon afterwards.
Chidwick, who is currently in contention for the major Player of the Year races in the game, couldn’t muster any action and was gone early on Thursday. He had plenty of company on the rail as World Series of Poker Europe champion Kevin MacPhee (currently 13th on the CardPlayer Player of the Year race), Martin Finger (13th on the Global Poker Index POY race) and Zinno (leads CardPlayer rankings, second on GPI listings) would join him soon after his elimination.
As the next level began, the leaderboard took a stunning turn. Despite coming into the day with a dominant lead and adding to it through the early action, Cranfield would depart in the next level. He lost a huge pot to O’Dwyer, but still had more than he started the day with (176K) after the clash. Cranfield kept butting heads with O’Dwyer and O’Dwyer kept coming out on the other end the victor, eventually stacking up 293K in chips as Cranfield was relegated to the exits. It was a remarkable turn for a player many thought might make a deep run in the tournament.
O’Dwyer wouldn’t hold that lead long, giving it up to the man who would eventually finish the night’s play with the lead. Brian Senie and O’Dwyer went to battle on a K♠ 6♣ A♣ 9♣ 3♦ board, with Senie pushing out a bet post-flop, on the turn and the river (the final bet to the tune of 145K) and getting called on each street by O’Dwyer. When Senie turned up an 8♣ 7♣ for the turned flush, all O’Dwyer could do was shake his head as a massive amount of his former chips – and the chip lead – headed over to sit in front of Senie.
Senie continued to pound his opposition, building up a huge stack by the end of the night:
1. Brian Senie, 759,000
2. Miguel Silva, 263,800
3. Abdelkader Benhalima, 244,400
4. Pavel Veksler, 239,500
5. David Abren, 222,000
6. Byron Kaverman, 218,800
7. Vasili Firsau, 213,400
8. Pavel Piesov, 207,300
9. Anton Afanasyev, 197,800
10. Yingui Li, 193,000
O’Dwyer has arguably been given more attention being in the upper echelons of the leaderboard (he finished Thursday in 11th place) and for his POY pursuits, but the man who has a better chance at winning the different POY awards is Kaverman. Actually leading the GPI POY rankings and in fourth place on the CardPlayer board, Kaverman could use a victory here in Prague to shore up his position and/or move up the ladder. They are among the 60 players who return on Friday for Day 3 action, but it will be some time before we know anything about the standings; only the top 27 finishers in this tournament will earn a cash and the precious POY points that come along with it.
