The World Poker Tour has stepped overseas for their next event, landing in the sunny climes of the Mediterranean at the Merit Crystal Cove Casino for the partypoker WPT Merit Classic North Cyprus. For its Day 1A action on Friday, a decent sized field came out to play and, by the end of the night, poker professional Andrey Pateychuk emerged as the chip leader.
Before a roster of notables could be picked out of the field, a clash between two of them resulted in the first elimination for the day. After Pavel Zuev limped into the pot, Vyacheslav Stoyanov raised the action from middle position and a third player pushed out a three-bet from the big blind. Zuev opted for a four bet off his limp and Stoyanov took out chips for a five-bet. The big blind called and Zuev decided to take his stand with an all-in move. Stoyanov made the call and, after the big blind finally decided to get out of the way, Zuev and Stoyanov turned up their cards.
In the end, it turned out to be anticlimactic. Stoyanov (naturally) had pocket Aces against Zuev’s pocket Jacks (the big blind stated he held pocket Queens) and, after the board ran with no Jacks for Zuev, he headed to the rail and Stoyanov picked up an early double to take the tournament’s chip lead.
Several other professionals were in action, including members of the WPT Champions’ Club. Defending Cyprus champion Alexey Rybin, Dominik Nitsche, Dmitry Gromov, James Dempsey, Andrey Shatilov and Pateychuk were all active early in the re-entry event (players could buy in twice on Day 1A and, if eliminated, can come back for Day 1B on Saturday, but only a few of those men would make it out of the day’s skirmish. Shatilov and Rybin all headed to the rail as the action wore on (both players should be back for Saturday’s play), but it was Pateychuk who seemed to never lose chips as the day progressed.
By the end of the night, Pateychuk was atop the 82 survivors that came out of the 172 entry Day 1A field (there were 150 unique buy-ins and 22 re-entries), sitting on a decent stack of 161,800. Pateychuk, as well as the other members of the Top Ten, will have a Saturday off to relax as players take their final shot(s) in the Day 1B field.
1. Andrey Pateychuk, 161,800
2. Dmitry Bayramov, 149,200
3. Seref Dursun Anar, 147,200
4. Ivan Sheptyskiy, 144,100
5. Alexandr Lakhov, 136,100
6. Timor Mavgolin, 129,900
7. Dmitry Kuzmin, 126,300
8. Jacques Torbey, 118,900
9. James Dempsey, 114,400
10. Dmitry Gromov, 113,700
Bubbling under the Top Ten are such names as Stoyanov (73,500), Vladimir Troyanovskiy (99,700) and Igor Dubinskyy (105,800), but some players such as Manig Loeser (32,500), Nitsche (29,600) and Mickey Petersen (9800) will have some work to do if they are to contend for the WPT Cyprus championship.
The $4000 buy-in tournament should be able to eclipse last year’s numbers of 262 players (partially due to the re-entry format), especially with the usual circumstance of Day 1B fields being larger than their Day 1A counterparts. As such, the prize pool should be larger than last year’s $1 million that was guaranteed. Rybin, in winning the tournament last year, took home a $258,000 for his efforts; with a good turnout on Saturday, the first place prize should easily go over the $300K mark.
