The second attempt of John Juanda to run up a stack has not been crowned and he won't be adding a second EPT Main Event title to his poker resume for now.
It started with a raise to 1,800 by Christopher Andler in the cutoff. Juanda three-bet to 5,000 and Carlos Chadha in the small blind moved all in to isolate out of the small blind. Andler folded and Juanda called it off.
John Juanda:
Carlos Chadha:
The board came and Juanda was knocked out by his signature hand.
As usual, the jovial Sam Grafton can be heard within the entire tournament area and this time he found some players to talk to near consistently, as High Rollers Bryn Kenney, Luc Greenwood, and Scott Seiver are seated with him.
Seiver was left with very few chips and quadrupled once through Kenney with versus . Kenney had just doubled through Greenwood the previous hand when his got there against thanks to a board of .
Grafton was filming the showdown with his smartphone, adding commentary for the story, and then joked while pointing to the roof "I am taking this tournament seriously, don't do anything to me." So far, Grafton is doing quite well with four times the starting stack.
Alexander Kharkov opened to 2,000 under the gun. Justin Bonomo, in middle position, three-bet to 6,500. Action folded back Kharkov who called.
A flop reading was dealt. Kharkov checked. Bonomo bet 5,000. Kharkov check-called.
The turn came the . Kharkov checked again. Bonomo continued with a bet of 17,000. Kharkov took a minute of reflection before check-raising to 40,000. Bonomo responded by moving all in for around 64,000. Kharkov snap-called and the cards were tabled.
Alexander Kharkov:
Justin Bonomo:
The river filled up the board and Kharkov raked in the pot, eliminating Bonomo.
Joey Weissman faced an open raise to 2,500 and a three-bet to 8,500 by Max Silver on the button and elected to four-bet out of the big blind, making it 23,200 to go. The initial raiser folded and Silver jammed all in, Weissman quickly called and there were some gasps at the table before the cards were turned over.
Joey Weissman:
Max Silver:
Silver kept shaking his head during the run out of the board and was left with just 2,000, as Weissman doubled for 134,100 and jumped into the top five in the last level of the night. Silver busted a few hands later and will likely be back for another shot on Day 1b.
The first of two starting days of the 2019 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) $10,300 Main Event is in the books and a strong turnout put the event well on track to easily surpass the 582 entries of the previous year at the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island. Back in 2018, 178 players took part on Day 1a and that number has been doubled, albeit with the help of 27 additional re-entries.
Out of the 356 entries, only 135 players bagged up chips after 10 hour-levels and Alexander Kharkov topped the counts with a massive stack of 350,000. The Russian only has three cashes to his name so far and the best result came from a deep run in a side event at the 2018 EPT Monte-Carlo festival. Kharkov was among the chip leaders after the dinner break and sent Justin Bonomo to the rail in a big pot when he turned a flush with king-queen suited, Bonomo had pocket aces with the spades redraw and failed to get there.
The biggest pot of the day went to Joey Weissman, who won an enormous flip in the final level of the night with pocket queens against the ace-king of Max Silver. Weissman bagged up 267,000, good enough for second place on Day 1a. Other big stacks and notables that finished strong on the first of two starting days include Joao Simao (251,200), Brian Altman (236,100), Pavel Plesuv (191,700), Paul Vas Nunes (187,800), Elliot Smith (180,400), Jeremy Ausmus (145,800) and Kenny Hallaert (135,700).
Joey Weissman
Among the PokerStars ambassadors, only Andre Akkari (143,200) and Liv Boeree (64,800) advanced to Day 2 thus far, Maria Konnikova was ousted by Christopher Frank when her kings ended up second-best to a turned set of tens.
With the upcoming $100,000 Single-Day High Roller, many of the top pros and high stakes specialists opted to jump into Day 1a and many of them bowed out without anything to show for including Isaac Haxton, Seth Davies, David Peters, Andras Nemeth, Joe Cada, Benjamin Pollak, Rainer Kempe and Patrik Antonius.
Michael Dyer was the first player to run out of chips two times, and several others would follow throughout the day. John Juanda ran with ace-queen into the pocket aces of Brian Altman in the first attempt and then lost a flip with pocket jacks against the ace-king of Carlos Chadha in the penultimate level of the night. Harrison Gimbel won't repeat his victory at the PCA Main Event in the current year either, as he was already eliminated twice on Day 1a.
Other former EPT champions such as Davidi Kitai, John Dibella, Paul Michaelis, Noah Boeken, Arsenii Karmatckii, and Oleksii Khoroshenin were among those to leave empty-handed. Michaelis, who was the last player to lift the EPT Main Event trophy just a few weeks ago in Prague, had a very short-lived day when his flopped set of treys and turned full house was crushed by the quads kings of Andreas Eiler at the end of level two.
Eventually, more than half of the field failed to bag up chips. All those that played just once are allowed to take another shot in the second starting day and a bumper field is expected for tomorrow's Day 1b as of noon local time. Another ten levels of 90 minutes are scheduled then, and the registration remains open until the start of day 2 on Sunday, January 13th, 2019. Make sure to tune back then, as the PokerNews live reporting team will be on the floor to cover all the action until a new EPT champion is crowned.
Joao Simao and Andre Akkari advance with big stacks
and Juanda was knocked out by his signature hand.
. Kenney had just doubled through Greenwood the previous hand when his 
got there against 
thanks to a board of 
.
was dealt. Kharkov checked. Bonomo bet 5,000. Kharkov check-called.
. Kharkov checked again. Bonomo continued with a bet of 17,000. Kharkov took a minute of reflection before check-raising to 40,000. Bonomo responded by moving all in for around 64,000. Kharkov snap-called and the cards were tabled.
river filled up the board and Kharkov raked in the pot, eliminating Bonomo.
and was left with just 2,000, as Weissman doubled for 134,100 and jumped into the top five in the last level of the night. Silver busted a few hands later and will likely be back for another shot on Day 1b.
