Bernard Samaha Finishes Day 1B at the Top

(Photo: Bernard Samaha)

Day 1B has come to a close and what a great day of poker action it was. A hopeful 125 players took their seats, and at the end of the day, only 46 of them remained. That means from a total field size of 262 players, 103 will be returning for some more of the same when Day 2 begins at the slightly later time of 14:00 (local time).

The chip leader is Bernard Samaha who finished the day on 293,700 chips. Joining him in the Day 2 seat draw are Kara Scott (41,300), Natalya Nikitina (88,000), Ognjen Sekularac (14,100) and PartyPoker qualifier Max Droege (176,000), but how did they all manage to dodge, swerve, smash and luck box their way through the day?

Let’s find out as we bring you the Day 1B recap.

The Day 1A recap started with a tale of woe for Martin Kabrhel. The wizard from the Czech Republic began the day by bluffing the vast majority of his chips into the waiting arms of his opponent, and was eliminated not that long thereafter. Here at WPT Towers we like to keep a common theme to most things, so why not start the Day 1B recap in the same way? Sorry, Martin.

There is one slight difference in the bad luck story of Martin Kabrhel, because this time he got his money in good. Quite good, in fact. Kabrhel found bottom two pair on [Jc] [7s] [5s] and an opponent in Azad Jabraylov willing to go broke with top pair-king kicker. All smiles then? Not exactly. A couple of treys on the turn and the river pairing the board to give Jabraylov a better two-pair and Kabrhel had once again gotten off to a bad start.

(Photo: Martin Kabrhel)

Another player who had paid his dues twice without anything to show for it was Mateusz Moolhuizen. The Dutchman was eliminated in the second level in set-on-set action against Seyed Ghavam. It was three-handed, in a single raised pot, on a flop of [Kh] [3s] [2d] when Moolhuizen bet 550 and both players called. The [7h] hit the turn and this time Ghavam came into the pot with the check-raise once Moolhuizen had bet 1,800. The Dutchman paid the 5,100-chip fee and the pair were heads-up to the river. The dealer put the [9c] out there and Ghavam led for 10,600; a move that put Moolhuizen in the tank. When he surfaced, he decided to move all in, and Ghavam made the call. It was pocket treys and a flopped set for Moolhuizen, but a turned set of sevens ensured Ghavam would finish the first two levels with the chip lead.

The third and fourth levels seemed to move along like a slug. It was slow and devoid of action, but there was a change at the top of the chip counts. Bernard Samaha giving us a dressing down for not including his 95,000-chip stack in the chip counts…and quite rightly too. Samaha told us he won the majority of them in a four bet pot where he held pocket queens, flopped top set and rivered a full house…tough life. At the end of the second break Samaha was our chip leader.

The last two levels before the dinner break saw four quality players leaving, two joining and a new chip leader emerging.

WPT Champions Club members Vladimir Bozinovic and Dmitry Gromov had been sharing a table all day, and both of them were eliminated just before the dinner break. Bozinovic pushed his short stack over the line with queen-jack, only to run into the pocket tens of Evagoras Evagorou. A third ten on the flop ending that argument before it had even started. Then Gromov got his short stack in the middle with pocket jacks, only to run into a king-jack that managed to find a four-flush spade board to connect to the Jack of Spades.

(Photo: Dmitry Gromov)

Two WPT Champions Club members departed and one arrived. Marvin Rettenmaier took his seat just before the dinner break, and the 2008 WSOP Main Event final tablist Kelly Kim joined him.

Marius Pospiech and Martin Kabrhel also lost their way in these two levels before we saw Erkut Yilmaz exert his authority on the tournament. Yilmaz has had an amazing summer after a 61st-place finish at this years WSOP Main Event netted him a nice six-figure sum, and it seems to want to keep going after he grabbed the chip lead in a hand against Ognjen Sekularac that you can read about right here.

As we headed to dinner it was Yilmaz with the chip lead with 94-players remaining in the tournament.

Just two hands had passed in Level Seven when we lost our reigning champion. Marvin Rettenmaier moved his last 16k into the middle with two red jacks and found a caller holding [As] [Qs]. A flip. Something that Rettenmaier is usually good at winning, only not on this occasion. His opponent hit a flush on the turn and Rettenmaier was out.

Joining Rettenmaier on the side-lines were Kelly Kim and Andrei Stoenescu. The Romanian moved his last 10k into the middle holding [Ax] [6x] and was snapped off by the pocket fives of Ognjen Sekularac; and Kim was mightily unlucky to see his pocket kings smashed to pieces by the pocket jacks of Malek Abi Nasr. A jack on the flop did the damage for Kim.

(Photo: Kelly Kim)

At the other end of the table Erkut Yilmaz started to descend whilst several unknown names started to ascend. Asaf Avci and Ugur Unal both moved well over the 100,000-chip mark, but it was Seyed Ghavam who finished Level Eight with the chip lead. The man who eliminated Mateusz Moolhuizen early in the tournament was sat with 160,000 and 68 players on the clock.

In the final two levels of the day we lost our WSOP bracelet holder and one of our former chip leaders. Simeon Naydenov found himself out of the competition when he over valued his ace-king after riving an ace, only to run into Bernard Samaha who had turned a full house. The WSOP bracelet holder was out in ninth, and Erkut Yilmaz duly followed him. Our one-time chip leader limped out of the tournament bluffing against Sevevi Kemal with [6c] [4s] on a [8h] [8c] [7s] [Td] board with Kemal holding kings. All the money went in on the turn.

And that’s a wrap. Congratulations to Bernard Samaha for ending the day as the chip leader, and he will start as the chip leader proper when Day 2 begins at 14:00 (local time).