Don’t get confused. There are two major poker tournaments taking place in Prague right now: one is the “E”PT and one the “W”PT, so be sure you read your updates carefully. In this article, we are discussing the World Poker Tour (WPT) Prague Main Event, whose Day 1A concluded Sunday. It was a tiny first flight – just 40 players signed up – and 22 players have moved on to Day 2 later this week.
Leading the charge is Belarus’ Vasili Firsau with 167,700 chips. Firsau is coming off a deep run in a World Poker Tour event less than two months ago, finishing second in the WPT Grand Prix de Paris Main Event and earning €230,200 ($315,002). According to his profile at TheHendonMob.com, Firsau has just seven other live tournament cashes, though three of those came in EPT or WPT events (remember, read watch those abbreviations carefully). All told, he has won just shy of half a million dollars on the live tournament circuit.
The rest of the short leaderboard is fairly top heavy. After Firsau, Andrey Vlasenko has 139,000 chips and Andrey Shatilov has 93,200. Once you get past Hans Hein and his 75,400 chips, nobody else has more than 62,000.
In a small field, pots that would normally be fairly modest in a larger tournament can have a major impact. Take a couple of Firsau’s significant hands. The first, which got him over the 100,000 mark, saw he and Ilkin Amirov get into a raising war pre-flop until all the chips were in the middle. And it’s no wonder: Firsau had A-A and Amirov had Q-Q. The board helped neither and Amirov was eliminated. Then, late in the day, Firsau grabbed the chip lead. Michael Polchlopek raised pre-flop to 1,200, two men called, and Virsau three-bet. Polchlopek and another player called and the flop was laid out: 6♦-9♣-A♠. Firsau bet and Polchpolek called to bring on the turn of T♥. At that point, Firsau checked, prompting Polchlopek to move all-in for 20,000 to grow the pot to 56,000. Firsau quickly called (it’s a trap!) and showed A♦-K♣ for top pair, top kicker. Polchpolek was in trouble, holding A♥-J♥. He got no assistance from the 9♦ on the river and was knocked out of the competition.
Day 1B is underway at the Card Casino Prague in the Czech Republic as a new batch of players, plus some possible second chance players, try to advance to the combined Day 2.
2013 WPT Prague Main Event
1. Vasili Firsau – 167,700
2. Andrey Vlasenko – 139,000
3. Andrey Shatilov – 93,200
4. Hans Hein – 75,400
5. Fedor Stadtrucker – 61,900
6. Kara Scott – 61,800
7. Micah Raskin – 61,000
8. Wojciech Lozowski – 54,800
9. Atanas Lkavrakov – 52,300
10. Manuel Sadornil – 47,000
