With the two Day 1 starting flights wrapped up, Monday was the time for the survivors of each – plus anyone who wanted to fire one final bullet or register for the first time – to come together in a single, unified field for Day 2 at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Europe Main Event at the King’s Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic. Vishal Maini emerged from yesterday’s action as the overwhelming chip leader with 651,500 chips.
After Maini, the next largest chip stack belongs to Milad Oghabian. His 463,500 is significant, but it is also nearly 200,000 fewer chips than the total belonging to Maini. After Oghabian, the top of the leader board is pretty packed, with the next five chip stacks ranging from 408,500 to 424,000 chips.
Maini has just $73,532 in lifetime live tournament earnings (I would LOVE to have that success!), but he isn’t quite in uncharted waters. Maini did finish sixth in the 2017 C$ 10,000 + 300 No Limit Hold’em High Roller event at the Playground Poker Spring Classic and tenth in the partypoker WPT Caribbean Main Event, so he has gone deep in some non-trivial tournaments. But neither of those is the World Series of Poker Europe.
Registration for the WSOP Europe Main Event was open until the beginning of Day 2; as a re-entry event, players who were eliminated on Day 1 could still take one more shot on Monday. When the final registration tallies were made, there were 529 entries, allowing the prize pool to just barely eclipse the guarantee of €5,000,500. Of the €5,025,500, €1,115,207 will go to the winner. 80 players will make the money with a minimum cash of €15,131.
Some notables of the 134 who moved on to Day 3 of the WSOP Europe Main Event were Mike Leah, David Peters, Philipp Gruissem, Anatoly Filatov, Pierre Neuville, Anthony Zinno, Mustapha Kanit, Antoine Saout, Kevin MacPhee, Davidi Kitai, Eugene Katchalov, Maria Ho, and Dominik Nitsche.
Ryan Riess, John Racener, Phil Hellmuth, Chris Ferguson, and Chris Moorman who among those who were eliminated on Day 2. Unfortunately, Racener’s ouster on Monday at the WSOP Europe also means that Chris Ferguson has won the 2017 World Series of Poker Player of the Year. Yes, that’s right. A man who was partly responsible for the theft of millions of dollars from Full Tilt Poker customers will now be celebrated as the Player of the Year. What’s next? Are we going to elect a grifter who doesn’t pay contractors President of the United States?
2017 World Series of Poker Main Event – Day 2 Chip Leaders
1. Vishal Maini – 651,500
2. Milad Oghabian – 463,500
3. Alexander Lakhov – 424,000
4. Jens Lübbe – 419,000
5. Roman Herold – 412,000
6. Gianluca Speranza – 408,500
7. Michael Mrakes – 408,500
8. Stoyan Obreshkov – 386,000
9. Goran Mandic – 377,500
10. Anatoliy Zyrin – 376,000
