Just before the last hands of the night were announced, Brian Rast raised the pot to 6,600 on the button and defending champion James Calderaro came along from the big blind. The flop of was checked through and Calderaro bet the pot for 13,400 on the turn, which Rast called.
Both checked the on the river and Calderaro announced ace-high, which Rast had beat with the .
Yuki Ko and Jonathan Abdellatif are no longer seated and Anson Tsang almost experienced the same fate. He three-bet preflop against Xuedong Li and moved all in after a flop of . There were more than 50,000 up for grabs in the middle of the table and Tsang's shove was for 44,600. Li checked his cards carefully and folded.
The field of 192 entries has been cut into almost half as just over 100 players bagged up for the night. Anthony Zinno busted just prior to that and will have to re-enter in the first two levels of Day 2.
One of the highlights of the 2018 World Series of Poker, Event #42: $25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed High Roller, has wrapped up the first day with 101 players out of a 192-entry strong field bagging up after ten levels of one hour each. Some of the biggest names on the international poker circuit took a shot at glory at the Rio All-Suites Hotel & Casino and it was Konstantin Beylin that ended on top of the counts with a stack of 617,500.
Beylin is no stranger to the WSOP, with seven cashes and three further cashes at WSOP Circuit events for just over $100k in prize money, His biggest payday was on this very event one year ago where he finished in 24th place and received $42,393 for his efforts.
Veselin Karakitukov is familiar with running deep in this event as well. At the 2016 WSOP, Karakitukov ended up in 5th place for a career-best score of $252,909. The Bulgarian bagged up the second-biggest stack with 549,500. Karakitukov's rise to the top of the leaderboard began very early when he was involved in a three-way all in with Ryan D'Angelo and Jason Mercier. Karakitukov had flopped top set against the nut straight of his two opponents, and the river paired the board to ensure the triple up for the Bulgarian.
The $25,000 price tag brought out some of the very best in the world, and plenty of notables made it through to Day 2. Following Beylin and Karakitukov was poker superstar Daniel Negreanu (532,000), Aaron Katz (525,000), George Wolff (504,500), David Len Ashby (498,500) and Scotsman Fraser MacIntyre (482,000). Negreanu was among those to bust on the first attempt, re-enter and successfully run up a big stack in the last level of the night.
Chance Kornuth (473,500), Robert Mizrachi (453,000), 2017 fourth place finisher Artem Babakhanyan (436,000), Chris "BigHuni" Hunichen (374,000), Scotty Nguyen (347,500), Jason Koon (325,000), Brian Rast (312,500), Paul Volpe (258,500), defending champion James Calderaro (234,500) and PLO serial crusher Tommy Le (230,000) all bagged solid stacks as well.
Among those to bust throughout the ten levels on Day 1 were Iraj Parvizi, Ben Lamb, Yuki Ko, Jonathan Abdellatif, Bryn Kenney, Esther Taylor, Farid Jattin, Keith Lehr, Jesper Hougaard, Jussi Nevanlinna, Jan-Peter Jachtmann, Michael Mizrachi, Richard Gryko and Anthony Zinno. Parvizi ran his second bullet up to more than half a million in chips before ending up on the rail not even an hour later on a table that featured Wolff, Jacob Kalb and Eric Berger.
Two dozen players re-entered and that number is guaranteed to grow, as the registration remains open for another two levels on Day 2. Michael Mizrachi is among those expected to take another shot at the coveted gold bracelet after coming fresh off winning an unprecedented third title in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship. Mizrachi was ousted by Dominykas Karmazinas when he got it in with aces and a straight draw on a ten-high flop, Karmazinas had two pair and ended up with a full house after the turn and river came running sevens.
Day 2 will recommence at 2 p.m. local time with level 11 and blinds of 1,500/3,000, the prize pool information will be released once the registration has closed at the start of level 13. Make sure to tune back in to find out who will remain in contention for the $25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha High Roller title.