Day 1B Ends with 56 Players, Magalashvili Among the Leaders Again
Another day at King's Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic has come to an end as Day 1B of Event #5: €1,100 MONSTER STACK No-Limit Hold'em has wrapped up. The second of three flights saw 204 players take to the felt with just 56 moving on to Day 2. A familiar is among the leaders and it's no surprise that Michael Magalashvili from Israel has heaps of chips.
So far at the 2018 WSOPE, it has been the year of Israel as they have been cleaning up on the poker tables. The first two events were won by players from Israel and Magalashvili made the final table in Event #3: €550 Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed. A successful Day 1B saw him throw 325,000 chips into the bag which was good enough for the second largest stack on the day. Magalashvili has made the King's Casino his home in the past couple of years with all of his tournament cashes coming in the same place.
The only player to run up a bigger stack than Magalashvili was Asher Assis who ran up a stack of 349,000. Assis was hovering around the 200,000 chip mark for the latter half of the day, but a double elimination in the last hand of the night saw his chip stack soar to the top. Daniel Smiljkovic rounds out the top three counts with an equally impressive 289,000 chips.
Some other familiar faces moving on to Day 2 include Timur Margolin (260,000), Anson Tsang (205,000), Fahredin Mustafov (184,000), Stoyan Obreshkov (154,000), Bertrand Grospellier (79,500), Anthony Zinno (73,500), and Maria Lampropulos (56,500). Margolin, Grospellier, and Zinno are the only players to join Day 1A participant, Chris Ferguson, as WSOP bracelet winners moving on to Day 2.
The day began at 3:00 PM with players filtering into the Poker Arena and the numbers were quickly escalating above the 100 mark. Even with only one entry per flight, it didn't stop the chips from flying early as Viacheslav Ivanov was eliminated after just four minutes. The number of entries continued to grow over the course of 12 levels until late registration finally closed with 204 total entries.
There were many players to hit the rail over the course of the day and will be forced to re-enter tomorrow on Day 1C if they wish to find a spot on Day 2. Jeff Madsen hit the exit before the first break for the second day in a row while Shaun Deeb took the opposite approach by registering in the 11th level of the day but was eliminated just three hands in. Some other notables to keep an eye out for tomorrow include Romain Lewis, Dutch Boyd, Rex Clinkscales, Allen Kessler, Asi Moshe, Cord Garcia, Manig Loeser, Martin Kabrhel and Viliyan Petleshkov.
The action will once again resume on Saturday at 3:00 PM local time and this will be the last starting flight of Event #5. Late registration will remain open until the beginning of level 13 which will be approximately 12:25 AM. The PokerNews live reporting team be on site to bring you all of the live updates from the tournament floor, so be sure not to miss any of the action.
2018 WSOPE Monster Stack Schedule
| Day | Date | Starting Time | Late Reg | Entries | Survivors | Further Information |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1A | Thursday, October 18th | 15:00 | ~00:25 | 148 | 30 | Play 14 levels of 40 minutes |
| 1B | Friday, October 19th | 15:00 | ~00:25 | 204 | 56 | Play 14 levels of 40 minutes |
| 1C | Saturday, October 20th | 15:00 | ~00:25 | TBA | TBA | Play 14 levels of 40 minutes |
| 2 | Sunday, October 21st | 14:00 | - | TBA | TBA | Level duration increases to 60 minutes |
| 3 | Monday, October 22nd | TBD | - | TBA | TBA | Play down to a champion |