Home / Poker News August 2009 / EPT Kyiv – Day 1B: the tough get going
EPT Kyiv – Day 1B: the tough get going
Posted by: James Carter. - Sun, 2009-08-23 02:02
Day 1B of the EPT’s inaugural Kyiv stop saw the remaining 167 players hit the green felt. Some of the biggest names registered decided to get rolling on the second Day 1 flight, as Gus Hansen, Ivan Demidov, Katja Thater, Dario Minieri and a whole bunch of other Team PokerStars members showed up for the second inning of the first day of EPT Kyiv action.
The 167 players of Day 1B, together with the 129 players who bellied up to the tables on Day 1A took the total number of participants to 296, which is slightly disappointing given the excellent starting fields the EPT registered for each of its newly introduced stops last year. Even so however, the event still managed to beat the record for the largest participation and prize-pool in the ex-Soviet region, previously held by the Russian Poker Tour’s St Petersburg event.
The participants combined for a €1,390,200 prize-pool, which meant that the winner would walk away with €330,000. People came from 33 countries to play in the EPT Kyiv’s Main event, most of them from Russia and from the Ukraine.
At the end of Day 1B, when all was said and done, it was Viktor Ivanov who clinched the provisional chip lead.
Team PokerStars took some early casualties on Day 1B as local player Vlad Zhuba and Italians Pier Paolo Fabretti and Dario Minieri were eliminated relatively early in the going. The rest of the team survived however and will play on Day 2, together with Alexander Kravchenko who had secured his Day 2 seat the previous day.
The uncharacteristically cautious style of play that “plagued” early Day 1A action, was no longer present on Day 1B. Players came out swinging left and right from the opening bell and some of them chipped up nicely reaping the benefits of their early aggression.
Shaun Deeb was one of these early maniacs and he did indeed manage to take off early as he took most of Dmitry Stelmak’s chips about 30 minutes into the action.
Deeb led out on a flop of 2,10,9. Selmak elected to check raise Deeb, and Deeb quickly made the call.
Stelmak kept up the pressure on the turn which brought a 9c, and on the river which landed an Ad. Deeb was all-in by showdown with his pocket Js making short work of the Russian’s pocket 5s.
The later stages of the event were by no means eventless. Gus Hansen showed up unexpectedly, drawing a large throng of spectators to his table, then the lights went out – quite literally. A power failure left the tables in the dark, with tournament officials walking from one table to another with flashlights to finish up the pending hands. Power was restored within 25 minutes though and the action resumed.
Hansen’s EPT Kyiv appearance, though a welcome one – didn’t last long. He was out by the end of the day, together with ultra-aggressive Dario Minieri and Pier Paolo Fabretti.
