As typical with multi-start day tournaments, Day 1C of the €1000 MONSTER STACK at the 2018 World Series of Poker Europe turned out to be the largest of the three starting days. Even with that said, the end of day chip leader couldn’t knock off the leader from Day 1A, demonstrating just how dominant the Day 1A leader was.
Day 1C in the Books with Oleg Netaliev On Top
From the start of play on Saturday at the King’s Casino in Rozvadov, everyone knew the final Day One action was going to be big. Unlike the other two-Day Ones, more than 100 players were in their seats for the “shuffle up and deal” call. This vastly outpaced the previous two days and demonstrated that players were desperate to make it through the day – and with the biggest stacks possible – to be able to move on to Day 2 on Sunday.
There were several familiar faces in the crowd on Saturday as they had played the previous two flights with no success to show for it. 2018 WSOP Europe bracelet winner Asi Moshe, Cord Garcia, Rex Clinkscales, Vojtech Ruzicka, Manig Loeser and many others were looking for a change in fortune along with a stack to move forward with into Day 2. Making his first appearance at the King’s Casino was former World Champion Ryan Riess, who didn’t exactly find the fortune he was looking for in running into Khabat Jahany and his set of sevens to be eliminated quite early.
Riess had plenty of company from the 314 entries that were tallied on Saturday. Players such as Roland Israelashvili, POY leader Shaun Deeb, Michael Soyza, Gianluca Speranza, Garcia and Moshe were all sitting on the side looking on by the end of the day. What was the surprise was the player who ended up the day on the top of the rock.
Oleg Netaliev seems to have emerged from some sort of Russian poker player incubator to explode on the scene just this year. He only has three cashes to his credit, but one of those was a victory at the partypoker Russian Poker Championship. He’s going to be in good shape for getting a bit deeper in this WSOP Europe event as he concluded the day’s action with 472,000 in chips to lead the way.
1. Oleg Netaliev, 472,000
2. Frank Rohrmueller, 399,500
3. Yoan Argence, 386,500
4. Tamas Szunyoghy, 362,500
5. Andres Zepeda, 344,500
Day 1A Leader Quan Zhou Becomes Overall Leader
Because of his outstanding play on Thursday, Day 1A leader Quan Zhou will be the overall leader when the players come back to the table on Sunday. Amassing a monstrous 519,500 in chips from what was the smallest Day One of the three starting days, Zhou didn’t have a serious competitor prior to Saturday when it came to chip stack size. With his excellent showing on Saturday, however, Netaliev will slot into the second place slot for play as Day 2 begins on Sunday and be a serious contender for Zhou to have to worry about.
1. Quan Zhou, 519,500*
2. Oleg Netaliev, 472,000***
3. Frank Rohrmueller, 399,500***
4. Jaroslav Peter, 397,000*
5. Michal Mrakes, 389,000*
6. Yoan Argence, 386,500***
7. Volodymyr Kemytskyi, 378,000*
8. Tamas Szunyoghy, 362,500***
9. Asher Assis, 349,000**
10. Andres Zepeda, 344,500***
(* – Day 1A player)
(** – Day 1B player)
(*** – Day 1C player)
As you can tell from the lineup, only the chip leader from Day 1B, Asher Assis, was able to make the Top Ten overall list.
There are 165 players in contention on Sunday’s Day 2, but all of them won’t be happy. Only 100 players will be paid from the €639,027 prize pool. The tournament should drive much deeper than the money bubble on Sunday, however, as the players who are able to survive will cast their gazes towards the WSOP bracelet and €134,407 that the eventual champion will take down.