Kamaras Leads After Big Day 1a €1,100 PokerStars Festival Main Event Rozvadov
Day 1a of the €1,100 PokerStars Festival Main Event Rozvadov is done! It was a big success for King's Casino where no less than 183 players took their seat on the first of four starting days. 66 of them made their way to the second day, with Peter Kamaras claiming a massive overall chip lead of 270,600.
King's Casino ran many qualifiers for the Main Event and it paid dividends. With 183 players a new Day 1a record for the PokerStars Festival was set, surpassing London's 169 entrants. With so many players already showing up for Day 1a, the €500,000 guarantee set by PokerStars and King's Casino will surely be shattered as the week progresses.
The top five after Day 1a is as follows:
| # | Player | Country | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Peter Kamaras | Hungary | 270,600 |
| 2 | Tomas Gulas | Czech Republic | 204,700 |
| 3 | Benjamin Benoit | France | 177,300 |
| 4 | Michael Rohde | Germany | 171,000 |
| 5 | Alexander Romme | Germany | 169,100 |
The day started off with Patrick B?rnicke in the spotlights, who doubled up his stack during the first ten minutes of the day with a straight against top set. B?rnicke held the chip lead for the first half of the day, but a late slump set him back to 123,400.
B?rnicke outlasted a slew of well-known players like Petr Jelinek, EPT7 Vienna winner Michael Eiler, WSOP bracelet winner J?rg Peisert, 2015 November Niner Pierre Neuville, three-time MCOP winner Sander van Wesemael and Team PokerStars Pro Marcin Horecki. All these players will get another shot on Saturday night in the Day 1d turbo, only accessible to players who busted on the first three starting days.
While the first half of the day belonged to B?rnicke, in the second half of the day it was all about Peter Kamaras and Tomas Gulas. Kamaras started off slow, dropped to one-third of his starting stack, then went on a massive tear that ended up with the end-of-day chip lead. Kamaras might look like the quintessential poker enthusiast, but he's certainly no slouch when it comes to the green felt. With multiple €50k+ cashes at the IPT and Estrellas Poker Tour, Kamaras is quite the dangerous opponent as he showed in a hand against Karel Mokry.
The only one who surpassed the 200k mark as well was Tomas Gulas. Gulas eliminated Team PokerStars Pro Marcin Horecki during the latter stages of the day. Horecki held four-deuce on a flop with a four and got it in on the turn when a deuce appeared. Gulas held pocket deuces and spiked the money card to send Horecki packing. Gulas ended the day with 204,700 in chips. Benjamin Benoit rounded out the top three with 177,300. Other notables to survive included Usman Siddique (165,200), Paul Gresel (109,200), Antonina Anapolska (66,700) and former HSV-striker and Bosnian soccer international Sergej Barbarez (64,900).
Day 1b will start tomorrow at 2 p.m. local time and will feature ten levels of 45 minutes each. On Sunday, all the surviving players from the starting days will return for Day 2. Follow PokerNews as we bring you all the action of this exciting Main Event directly as it happens.