Dmitrii Vitugin Bags the Biggest Stack on Day 1a of the Golden Million Cyprus Main Event
The first of five opening days of the Golden Million Cyrpus Main Event at the Noah's Ark Deluxe Hotel and Spa began with a bang with 110 entrants coming out in full force ready to compete for at least a guaranteed €1 million prize pool.
Players bought in for €800 for a stack of 80,000 in chips with blinds increasing every 45 minutes. Most players opted to increase their stack to 100,000 in chips via a €40 add-on. The add-on also acted as bubble protection.
After more than 16 1/2 hours of play, Russia's Dmitrii Vitugin emerged as the chip leader with 2,158,000 in chips. Also in the top five on Day 1a were, Hanouadi Del Pino (1,830,000), Jose Rivas (1,360,000), Justinas Fiseris (1,265,000), and Vytautas Semaska (899,000). In addition to heading into Day 2 with a big stack, Vitugin also wins a Golden Poker Series Madrid package valued at around €1,000 in March 2020.
World Series of Poker Europe bracelet winner Espen Sandvik, who fired three bullets on Day 1a, bubbled after he jammed with jack-eight on a queen-eight-four flop only to be called by Hanouadi Del Pino with ace-queen. It looked good for Sandvik to double after a jack came on the turn to give him two pair but a four paired the board on the river to give his opponent a better two pair. Since Sandvik added on, he was awarded €840 for his bubble finish.
Bariskaan Cinitas, Mahnaz Eskandari, Roman Nuraev, Miguel Faria Lopes, Mohammed Razkouallah, and Alexandre Klepikov were all eliminated before Day 2 ended to collect a min-cash of €1,200. All six of these players have the option to reenter during any of the four remaining opening flights. In addition, Klepikov was awarded a package to the Golden Poker Series Marrakech at the end of March 2020 valued at around €1,000 for bubbling bagging chips into Day 2.
Meanwhile, all players that failed to cash on Day 1a are invited to a freeroll on Wednesday that award the top five players a free entry back into the Main Event.
The action will resume tomorrow for Day 1b at 3 p.m. EET. Stay tuned at PokerNews for coverage of the Golden Million Cyprus Main Event.