Day Two of the World Poker Tour stop in Vienna, Austria has come to a close with a Danish player atop the heap, although it isn’t one that immediately would come to mind.
179 of the original 396 player field gathered at the Montesino Casino in Vienna to continue the battle for the latest WPT championship. Leading the way was Darko Stojanovic, who held a sizeable lead over Carsten Jeppe when the cards hit the air this afternoon in Austria. Stojanovic would maintain that lead over a great deal of the action on Thursday but, by the end of the evening, he would drop that lead but remain in the mix.
The first round would feature some of the more aggressive players in the game today. European Poker Tour champion Roberto Romanello would be one of those players, pushing his chip stack over the 100K mark when he was able to get Peter Jachtman to call him down on all three streets. Romanello – who had no rest the previous evening, deciding to invest some time in a cash game – was able to show down pocket Kings against Jachtman, which was good enough to take the pot.
Stojanovic, for his part, continued to be a destroyer of opponent’s dreams. Seated with such players as Fabrice Soulier and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Stojanovic would be responsible for the elimination of one of those men. After an initial raise from Stojanovic, Soulier committed his final 30K in chips holding pocket sevens and was called by Stojanovic’s A-Q. A Queen on the flop and one on the turn put a stranglehold on the hand and, once he was able to dodge a seven on the river, Stojanovic eliminated one of his most difficult opponents.
As the evening wore on, the elimination of several notable pros couldn’t go unnoticed. Michael Tureniec was dumped from the tournament by Ben Wilinofsky, who then proceeded to knock out Vincenzo Natale – flopping quads against Natale’s turned full house – to move to the upper echelons of the leaderboard. Also hitting the rail in the early evening action were Jonathan Duhamel, Adam “Roothlus” Levy, Ludovic Lacay, Dominik Nitsche, Faraz Jaka and Grospellier.
Stojanovic continued on the attack as the final stages of Day Two played out. He would battle against Stephen O’Dwyer and, with two aggressive players, it was expected that the action would get heated. After a raise from Wade, O’Dwyer simply called holding pocket Kings, but Stojanovic would push the action up with a three bet. After Wade folded, O’Dwyer four bet to almost 40K and was called by Stojanovic.
The 5-3-2 flop was a good one (or so he thought) for O’Dwyer, who fired out again and got a call from Stojanovic. The turn seven also seemed innocuous as O’Dwyer bet again and Stojanovic called. O’Dwyer slowed down on the river four with a check, but Stojanovic pushed his stack in the center. After deliberating for a spell (O’Dwyer admitted to the WPT Updates staff, “I suppose I could have folded, but not against this guy.”), O’Dwyer made the call only to see his worst thoughts come to reality; Stojanovic had A-6 and had called him down with nothing until the river gave him the straight.
Even with this luck, Stojanovic could not hold onto the chip lead. He would bleed chips off and, by the time the bell rang for the end of play, Denmark’s Morten Christensen had passed him by for the chip lead. Christensen, an online qualifier who has earned three cashes in European events, will carry 483,000 chips into battle on Friday, with Chris “Moorman1” Moorman and Tristan Wade hanging close behind him. For his part, Stojanovic will be in the Top Ten, but it could have been much better:
1. Morten Christensen, 483,000
2. Chris Moorman, 440,000
3. Tristan Wade, 395,500
4. Walter Pflueger, 325,000
5. Michael Eiler, 280,000
6. Marius Pospiech, 270,000
Darko Stojanovic, 270,000
8. Ben Wilinofsky, 260,000
Fabio Brietfuss, 260,000
Other notables still in contention for the Vienna championship are Marvin Rettenmaier, Andrew Badecker, David Vamplew, Andy Frankenberger, Eugene Katchalov and Romanello, who might get some rest tonight before Friday’s action.
67 players will come back at 1PM (Central European Time) on Friday with the task of cracking the money bubble their first duty. 45 players will earn something for their time on the felt (approximately €6700), but the players are all looking to the prize at the end of the rainbow. The champion of the WPT Vienna will take away a payday of €311,374, have their name engraved on the Champions Cup and earn their way to the WPT Championship next month.
