April 23 2012, Donnie Peters

The PokerStars.com and Monte-Carlo® Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final “100,000 Super High Roller wrapped up Day 1 on Monday. A total of 38 players came out and plopped down the massive six-figure buy-in, with a few of them tossing in a second bullet for re-entry. At the end of the day, there were five re-entries.

After the first eight levels of play, 29 players remained when the chips were bagged and tagged, and Talal Shakerchi from the United Kingdom topped the pack. He bagged up a whopping 1.165 million in chips, thanks large in part to busting Team PokerStars Pro Viktor Blom on one of the last hands of the night.

With the blinds at 2,500/5,000/500 in the last level of the night, Blom raised to 10,000 under the gun and Shakerchi called. Tom Marchese also called and the flop came down . Blom checked, Shakerchi bet 17,000 and Marchese folded. Then, Blom check-raised to 68,000 and Shakerchi called.

The turn was the and Blom fired 108,000 into the pot. Shakerchi stood his ground and made the call to see the fall on the river. Blom bet 140,000 and Shakerchi moved all in. Blom went to insta-call and reached for his chips, but then thought for a bit before finally making the call. Shakerchi turned over for the nut flush and beat Blom’s . Blom was eliminated, but still has until the start of Day 2 to re-enter if he so pleases.

Coming in behind Shakerchi is 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event champion Jonathan Duhamel, and Dan Shak and Tobias Reinkemeier. Other notables remaining include Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius and Daniel Negreanu.

Negreanu was short on chips towards the end of the day, but battled hard to the end. On one hand following the dinner break, a short-stacked Negreanu doubled through Masa Kagawa to get back to over 100,000 in chips. Kagawa raised to 10,500 and Negreanu reraised all in for 59,000. Kagawa called and tabled and Negreanu showed . The flop, turn and river ran out and Negreanu doubled up.

Of the few who were eliminated on Day 1, only Leon Tsoukernik re-entered and then was eliminated again. Still, he claimed he’ll be back on Tuesday for Day 2. The others who hit the rail on Monday were Sam Trickett, Govert Metaal, Mike “Timex” McDonald, Artem Litvinov, Gus Hansen, Jason Mercier and Daniel Cates. All of them still have the option to re-enter up until the start of the event on Tuesday. Justin Bonomo, Isaac Haxton, Bill Perkins and Dieter Albrecht all busted once on Day 1, re-entered and then made it through to Day 2.

“100,000 Super High Roller Day 1 Top 10 Chip Counts

Day 2 kicks off at 1300 CEST (0400 PDT). It’s already been made known that both Gus Hansen and Tsoukernik will be firing another bullet into play, so that should account for two more chunks of cash added to the prize pool. Stay tuned to the PokerNews Live Reporting Team for all the action from the felt.

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April 11 2012, Donnie Peters

The World Poker Tour was back in action on Tuesday with Day 1a of WPT Vienna. One-hundred sixty-three players registered, and that number was cut down to 73 by the end of the day. Topping the pack with the early chip lead was David Breitfuss with 185,500 in chips.

With this being such a big time for the poker circuit in Europe, this first starting flight didn’t disappoint in terms of firepower. Plenty of former WPT champions were in the mix, including Andy Frankenberger, Victor Ramdin, McLean Karr, Sean Jazayeri and Mike Watson. Surprisingly, they all busted on Day 1a and would be forced to re-enter for Day 1b if they wanted to continue to chase another title. JP Kelly, Erik Cajelais, Alec Torelli, Adam Levy and Vanessa Selbst were also eliminated on Day 1a.

According to the WPT Live Updates Team, Watson was eliminated during Level 7 with the blinds at 250/500/50 when his pocket kings ran into the pocket aces of another former WPT champion, Roberto Romanello. One level earlier, Selbst fell to Matthias Kurtz after shoving her last 10,000 or so into the middle with and not holding up against Kurtz’s .

Joining Breitfuss near the top of the leaderboard were Michael Eiler (179,700) and Marc Gork (170,500). Marvin Rettenmaier (95,300), Chris Moorman (93,200) and David Vamplew (66,600) also advanced after a decent day on the felt.

Along with Romanello, who bagged up 69,000 in chips, former WPT champions Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Eugene Katchalov advanced to Day 2. They bagged up 65,100 and 61,800 in chips, respectively. And speaking for former champions, the 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event champ Jonathan Duhamel stuffed 59,500 in chips into his bag to take to Day 2.

WPT Vienna Day 1a Top 10 Chip Counts

Day 1b kicked off at 1300 CET on Wednesday. There were many repeat names re-entering the event and plenty of new faces, so you won’t want to miss the daily recap right here on PokerNews.

*Photo courtesy of the World Poker Tour.

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