The World Poker Tour obviously has a sense of humor. The WPT has stopped at the King’s Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic for the WPT Germany (??) this weekend, wrapping up their three-Day Ones on Thursday. Coming from the largest of the three starting days, Hoang Pham took advantage of the large Day 1C field to become the only player over the 300K mark in the tournament.
Monster Day 1C Field, Monster Chip Stack Built
The final Day One of the WPT Germany (apparently it wasn’t efficient enough to call it the WPT Czech Republic, but hey, the Norwegian Championships of Poker are contested in Ireland) was a typical final day for a multi-day start tournament. Whereas the first two days only drew in 72 entries (Day 1A) and 82 entries (Day 1B), Day 1C trounced those numbers. The King’s Casino tournament floor was flooded with 175 entries on Thursday for action, more than doubling the size of the field.
This didn’t settle anything as to the prize pool, however. Late registration will go on until the start of action on Friday for the €3000 (€300 juice) tournament. Suffice it to say that the prize pool is now over the €1 million mark and should pay the eventual champion a decent six-figure payout.
Pham was relatively quiet throughout the day, content to slowly build his chip stack. It would be a massive clash with the then-chip leader, Antoine Vranken, that would change his fates. Vranken had been running roughshod over the field on Thursday when he came up against Pham. Holding pocket Kings, Vranken pounded Pham with bets until there were more than 300K in chips in the center of the table. When the hands were turned up, you could have almost predicted it; Vranken had a powerful pocket pair of Kings, but Pham turned up pocket Aces for the battle. Once the board ran Kingless, Pham took down the massive pot and the chip lead in the event.
Pham would eventually finish the day with 368,800 in chips, blasting past the first two starting day chip leaders and massively crushing the field for Day 1C.
1. Hoang Pham, 368,800
2. Sascha Minerva, 257,200
3. Artan Dedusha, 234,800
4. Anh Do, 223,000
5. Siamak Tooran, 220,800
6. Vitalii Kavkoliuk, 211,300
7. Besim Hot, 190,800
Pham Crushing the Combined Day Ones
Pham, who admitted to the WPT Live Updates team that he rarely plays tournaments, seems to be doing this one pretty well. He is the only player over the 300K mark in the event and is thoroughly crushing any contenders from his heat (Day 1C) as well as in the other two. Here’s the unofficial rankings as play continues with Day 2 on Friday:
1. Hoang Pham, 368,800 (Day 1C)
2. Sascha Minerva, 257,200 (1C)
3. Laszlo Papai, 246,900 (1A)
4. Artan Dedusha, 234,800 (1C)
5. Anh Do, 223,000 (1C)
6. Siamak Tooran, 220,800 (1C)
7. Josef Gulas, 216,300 (1B)
8. Vitalii Kavkoliuk, 211,300 (1C)
9. Farukh Tach, 211,100 (1A)
10. Peter Jaksland, 197,100 (1A)
Re-entry/late registration will end with the start of action on Friday at the King’s Casino in Rozvadov, with the prize pool and the number of players receiving a new entry on their Hendon Mob database being revealed soon afterwards. The championship of the WPT Germany (being held in the Czech Republic) will be determined on Sunday before the WPT makes its way back to North America for a trio of title events.
