David Breitfuss Leads WPT Vienna Day 1A

(Photo: David Brietfuss)

163 players entered Day 1A of WPT Vienna, and after nine levels of play 73 of them bagged up some chips confirming their return for Day 2 in two days time.
 
As ever, there needs to be someone with more chips than everyone else and his name was David Breitfuss who accumulated 185,500 of them. The local lad has only ever cashed in live events held in Austria, with his biggest being €24,340 in 2009, so he will be hoping to improve upon that in this event.
 
The day started off with smiles all around and our celebrity poker couple making a little last longer bet. There are a few Mr. and Mrs. of poker but Tatjana Pasalic and McLean Karr are right up there as two of the most well known. In last years WSOP Main Event and our recent WPT Dublin Pasalic outlasted her beau and was feeling in confident to once again repeat that feat. The forfeit of the last longer bet was for the loser to wear a cat suit for Day 1 of this summers WSOP Main Event. For the third consecutive time Karr did indeed bust before Pasalic, but there was controversy as Karr said the bet was not yet over because it was a re-entry event. Pasalic was desperate for people to support her in her argument that she had won the bet, but given the fact that 100% of the male populous wanted to see Pasalic in a cat suit, she had very little support. Pasalic eventually busted at the hands of Bodo Sbrzesny but the outcome of the bet is still to be decided.

(Photo: Tatjana Pasalic & Eugene Katchalov)

Cat suit or not, McLean Karr will be stumping up the extra cash to re-enter tomorrow and a few more famous faces may well be joining him. Former EPT champion Toby Lewis flopped a set and exited stage left, Alec Torelli wasn’t in the building for five minutes, WPT National Series, Denmark, winner Steve O’Dwyer ran pocket nines into pocket queens, WPT Champions Club member Mike Watson ran Kings into Romanello’s aces and they were just a few of the top quality pros who bit the dust.
 
The early chip leader was a local lad named Alex Varga, who chipped up after calling an all-in from Matt Kay. It was a tough decision, as well, with Varga making the call on a flop of [Ad] [8d] [5d] whilst holding [Td] [3d]. Kay held [Ac] [5c] for two pair and Varga became the early chip leader. But Varga obviously didn’t like his new found fame and decided to hand them all to Ronny Kaiser and Bodo Sbrzesny, and before you know it he was spotted heading down the escalators of the Montesino casino.

(Photo: Alex Varga)

Vanessa Selbst, Farad Jaka, Erik Cajelais, Martin Jacobson and WPT Player of the Year Andy Frankenberger all left the tournament and they were nearly joined by Roberto Romanello. The Welshman lost a huge pot for the chip lead in the most tilting of circumstances. He was all-in three way on a flop of [8c] [6c] [3x] holding [Ac] [Jc], Marko Neumann held [9c] [7c] and the third player held [5c] [4c]. A cruel [9d] on the turn handed Neumann the 140,000 pot and the chip lead. The break saving Romanello from steaming away his remaining chips and he eventually recovered to finish the day with 69,000. Neumann, although not the chip leader, finished with 131,700.
 

Towards the tail end of the competition it was Chris Sly, Marc Gork, Michael Eiler and David Breitfuss battling it out for the top spot. All four players were playing some wonderful poker and Gork even managed to outplay the seemingly out playable. Gork calling a river bluff raise from ElkY with only third pair. Gork may not have won the chip leader contest but we have handed him first prize in the chip castle contest.

(Photo Marc Gork – Chip Castle Building Contest Winner)

Congratulations once more to David Breitfuss and we will return tomorrow at 13:00 (CET) for Day 1B so make sure you join us right here for all of the live updates.