Austria's Ronald Zapantis bagged the overall Main Event chip lead in the €500,000 guaranteed The Festival Series Bratislava €550 Main Event at Banco Casino Bratislava after parlaying his 30,000 opening chip stack on Day 1b nearly 10-fold to 296,000 in chips to surpass the 256,000 in chips that the Day 1a chip leader Rikard Larsson bagged yesterday on Day 1a.
The Day 1b field attracted a total of 171 entries with 51 players finding a bag. When taking into account the 134 entries and 39 survivors on Day 1a, the field is now up to 305 entries with 90 survivors.
Zapantis was near the top of the chip counts nearly all day long and will start Day 2 with a massive stack of 118 big blinds. Also bagging more than the Day 1a chip leader Larsson was Bulgaria's Yaron Dichev with 276,000 while Michael Sklenička wasn't too far behind with 250,000 in chips.
Also finding big stacks on Day 1b were Siegfried Rath (201,000), Nils Linden (170,000), Tibor Benko (168,000), and good friend of PokerListings and The Festival Series Mateusz Moolhuizen (163,000).
| Place | Player | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ronald Zapantis | 296,000 | 123 |
| 2 | Yasen Dichev | 278,000 | 116 |
| 3 | Michael Sklenička | 250,000 | 104 |
| 4 | Siegfried Rath | 201,000 | 84 |
| 5 | Nils Linden | 170,000 | 71 |
| 6 | Tibor Benko | 168,000 | 70 |
| 7 | Mateusz Moolhuizen | 163,000 | 68 |
| 8 | Manuel Blaschke | 155,000 | 65 |
| 9 | Brian Riemenscheider | 154,000 | 64 |
| 10 | Tamas Barbarics | 151,000 | 63 |
The action for the Main Event will resume for Day 1c at noon on Thursday. Stay tuned at PokerListings for all your updates.
