A field of 178 players descended on the Casino at the Empire in London for Day 1B of the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Europe Main Event. The £10,000 buy-in tournament featured a collection of online poker pros on Sunday and, when action concluded for the day, Christian CKRUEL Kruel and Andrew luckychewy Lichtenberger sat with the 16th and 26th largest stacks entering Day 2, respectively. Play picks up today at 5:30pm local time, a late start due to the Yom Kippur holiday. Follow online poker players at the WSOP Europe Main Event on PocketFivesLive.com.
Andrew luckychewy Lichtenberger’s (pictured at left) ride through Day 1B started off on a rocky note, as the young online poker player, who will be featured once again on this week’s episode of the G4 online poker reality show “2 Months, $2 Million,” ran pocket kings into pocket aces, leaving him with 10,000 in chips. However, he quickly righted the ship. Lichtenberger took down the inaugural PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) Mid-Stakes Heads-Up Event for $172,000 in April, five months after taking second in the Sunday Million for $127,000. He’ll come armed to Day 2 in London with 89,500 chips, good for 26th overall.PocketFivesLive.com Tournament Reporter Court Harrington, who has been covering the action in the WSOP Europe Main Event, commented on Lichtenberger’s demeanor at the tables: "Relatively new to the live poker scene, Andrew seems extremely comfortable. His emotions, at least from an outside perspective, are totally under control and he just takes everything in stride. This calm attitude comes along with decision-making that is spot on almost every time."
Meanwhile, Christian CKRUEL Kruel (pictured at right) owns the 16th largest stack after two starting days at 114,450. Kruel hails from Rio de Janeiro and took down the $80,000 Guaranteed High Roller tournament on PartyPoker for $23,000. He also emerged victorious from the pack in a pair of No Limit Hold’em Turbo tournaments on PokerStars in late August and early September for a combined payday of $20,000. Despite having the 16th largest chip stack at the Casino at the Empire, Kruel will hold just the third largest at his table, trailing Martin Hansen’s 152,775 and Tommy Pavlicek’s 119,825.
Also appearing near the top of the leaderboard is Matt All In At 420 Stout (pictured at left), who had the grave misfortune of losing with a set of fives twice during Sunday’s play. However, he sent poker pro Neil Channing packing with pocket aces against Channing’s A-K to end the day on a positive note. Harrington commented, "Matt lost with sets twice early in the day, but was able to always maintain a healthy stack and rallied late in the day to finish in solid position. He is very good at limiting his risk and finding good spots to pick up chips."PocketFives.com members who survived Day 1B, along with their starting position and chip stack entering Day 2, included:
16. Christian CKRUEL Kruel - 114,450
26. Andrew luckychewy Lichtenberger - 89,500
44. Matt All In At 420 Stout - 73,100
71. Steven TheZadester Levy - 56,350
77. Annette Annette_15 Obrestad - 52,400
100. Justin Boosted J Smith - 41,675
101. James Andy McLeod Obst - 40,950
111. Eric P3achy_keen Liu - 37,800
112. Shaun shaundeeb Deeb - 37,500
114. Jason JCarver Somerville - 36,900
132. Mohsin chicagocards1 Charania - 32,325
141. Yevgeniy atimos Timoshenko - 29,675
176. Barry barryg1 Greenstein - 6,925
The Top 10 chip stacks overall are:
1. Brian Powell – 194,600
2. Jason treysfull21 Mercier – 189,725
3. Sami Kelopuro – 168,925
4. Steve Zolotow – 166,825
5. Viktor Blom – 163,175
6. Jonathan FatalError Aguiar – 160,100
7. Praz Bassi – 155,450
8. Martin Hansen – 152,775
9. Antoine Saout – 144,400
10. Christian charder Harder – 134,125
Saout is a member of the November Nine. Many in the industry have drawn a parallel between Saout at Ivan Demidov, who final tabled the WSOP and WSOP Europe Main Events in 2008. Saout is a card-carrying Everest Poker pro and will look to repeat Demidov’s impressive feat this year.
Check out complete WSOP Europe coverage on PocketFivesLive.com.
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