The second flight of Day 1 of the PokerStars.com EPT Hungarian Open is complete. 270 runners showed up at the Las Vegas Casino in Budapest for flight 1b, hoping for a shot at the €2 million prize pool. When the dust settled, approximately 95 or so players advanced to Day 2.
During Level 8, Italian Mauro Corsetti became the first player to pass the 100,000 chip mark. He ended the day among the chip leaders. A couple of familiar faces made it to Day 2 including Kara Scott, Johnny Lodden, William Thorson, Casey Kastle, Alex Kravchenko, and Praz Bansi. Three local Hungarian players, Tibor Tolnai, Milan Andrejkavics, and Denes Kalo, also advanced to Day 2.
Several big names failed to advance to Day 2. That list included 2008 EPT London champion Michael Martin, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Dario Minieri, Max Pescatori, Noah Boeken, Julian Thew, Alexia Portal, Fabrice Soulier, Antony Lellouche, and Vicky Coren.
Both opening flights will combine into one field tomorrow. 182 players remain. Day 2 begins at 1pm local time. Check back in with PokerNews for live updates. We will post end of Day 1b chip counts as soon as they are made available to us.
Mauro Corsetti's stack swelled further when he bet 5,000 on the turn of a board with 17,000 in the pot already, forcing his opponent to fold. Corsetti showed him for two pair.
Denes Kalo raised from the cutoff and it folded to Ivo Donev in the big blind -- he folded too, flashing paint. Kalo was about to show one card, when Donev piped up, "No don't show that one, I know what that one is. Show me the other one, the worse card." Kalo flashed the . Hilarity.
...In that the tables have turned on yesterday's excellent results for France, as two of today's remaining Frenchmen have now busted out -- neither Antony Lellouche nor Matthieu Jaunay will be returning tomorrow.
Team PokerNews Player Irme "Firesnake" Alfoldi has been short-stacked over the last few levels. He was down to his last 2,000 in chips but managed to still hang around. He was moved to fellow Hungarian Tibor Tolnai's table and now has around 4,000.