Peter Jaksland Bags Monster Chip Lead as Day 2 of the Main Event Concludes

By Lisa Yiasemides

Day 2 of the Main Event began with late registration still open and by the time it had closed, 510 registrations were logged here at King’s Resort.

The plan for the day was to play until the bubble burst and towards the end of the tenth level, the money was reached, pausing the clock for the night.

Al Lami was the unfortunate bubble boy after he decided to make a move for his remaining five big blinds with king-eight of clubs. He was looked up by Artan Dedusha who had ace-jack of the same suit. Though Lami hit a king on the flop, an ace came on the river to end his hopes of making a return on his investment.

Peter Jaksland (pictured) had the most productive day here in the poker room and takes 1,127,000 chips through to tomorrow. Day 1 chip leader Hoang Pham (908,000) finished in second place and Mario Ripepi (833,000) in third. Martin Kabrhel (786,000) and Champions Club member Konstantinos Nanos (760,000) completed the top five stacks.

Jaksland’s ascent began after he benefitted from a huge cooler during Level 16. The hand began with an open and a flat call before Jaksland (six-five of hearts) and Andrej Cintula (seven-three offsuit) called in the small and big blinds respectively. The flop came seven-three-seven with two hearts and Cintula check-raised a continuation bet, which only Jaksland called. The turn was the money card, a four of hearts, which gave Jaksland a straight flush. All the chips went in at this point and Jaksland won the 703,000 pot. He didn’t look back from there.

There was plenty of excitement elsewhere, with Hossein Ensan (pictured) among those to take a seat at the start of the day. He accrued 620,000 chips and will return tomorrow with over 150 big blinds to play with.

It wasn’t good news for everyone though, with Champions Club member Bertrand ‘Elky’ Grospellier among the casualties. He was joined at the rail by WPT Russia 2020 champion Aleksey Badulin, WPTDS Malta 2019 winner Sandro Pitzanti and last week’s WPTDS Brussels victor Omar Lakhdari.

Tomorrow, for the first time, the 12 players who qualified online will enter the fray, bringing the field total to 73. Among them is Julian Manhardt (1,214,000) who begins Day 3 as overall chip leader. Ryan Riess (220,000), Stefan Schillhabel (231,000) and Jack Sinclair (195,000) are also through, albeit with shorter stacks. They, as well as the 61 live survivors, have all locked up at least €6,000.

Tomorrow the excitement will continue as Day 3 gets underway from noon. Play returns with nine minutes left of Level 18. Cards up coverage of the feature table continues on the live stream with a 30-minute delay.

As always, the WPT.com live updates team will be here to capture all the action from start to finish.

Check out all the WPT Germany photos here. WPT Germany photos courtesy of Tomas Stacha.