888poker LIVE Bucharest: 469 Players Enter, Crushing the Guarantee

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Mar 04, 2018 4 min read Last updated Mar 05, 2018

Once the action for Day 1b of the 2018 888poker LIVE Bucharest �888 Main Event got underway, the signs were written on the wall that it was going to be a busy day in the Grand Ballroom of the stunning JW Marriott Bucharest Grand Hotel. More than 120 players were in their seats within half an hour, and the attendance of Day 1a was surpassed already.

More and more players kept pouring into the tournament area, some of which took more than just one shot at glory. Once the registration had closed, the tournament screens showed a massive 281 entries, and it was already certain that the guarantee of �288,000 was easily beaten with now 391 entries total. On top of that, the Turbo Day 1c kicked off at 11 p.m. when the remaining 69 survivors of Day 1b had just bagged up their chips, and at least 50 further entries were already registered at that point as well.

At the very end of the night it was a close race for the chip lead between Tudor Purice (435,500) and Ivan Stankov (398,000), which the former won. Other big stacks at the end of Day 1b include Krzysztof Chmielowski (295,500), Radu Pitic (273,500), Iulian Iacob (243,000), Sergiu Cornea (232,000), Dan Murariu (188,500), Bogdan Berinde (163,000) and Federico Petruzzelli (141,000).

Purice entered the tournament late and managed to quickly run up a stack after scooping several big pots. In the final level of the night, Purice won a big three-way all in with pocket nines against the pocket deuces of Danut Chisu and the jack-eight suited of Marius-Alexandru Gicovanu. Just before that, another big three-way all in took place over on the feature table as Stankov with pocket queens cracked the pocket aces of Natan Grossman. Short stack Riad Chahaf was caught in the crossfire of the big stacks with ace-four.

Two 888poker ambassadors took to the felt on Day 1b; Sofia Lovgren and Natalie Hof (lead photo). Lovgren had to re-enter and busted in a three-way all-in with ace-ten suited versus ace-king suited and pocket kings soon after the feature table live stream had kicked off. Hof peaked at 120,000 and spent the final two levels of the night on the live stream table, eventually bagging up 87,500.

Only around one-fourth of the field made it through in the penultimate day, and several familiar faces fell short, but may still book their seat for Day 2 in the Turbo Heat 1c. Among them were Marius Pertea, Pokerfest CEO Sorin Constantinescu, Cosmin Nedelea, Jeroen Aarts, Viliyan Petleshkov, Ionel Anton, Pasquale Grimaldi, Alexandru Farcasanu, Stefanita Fechete, Catalin Paul Diac, Silviu Baltateanu and Evangelos Bechrakis.

Day 1c Action

A total of 78 entries were generated in last night's turbo Day 1c with levels of 22 minutes each and 25 players advanced to Day 2. Aurel Iovan topped the counts with 277,000, while Marius Pertea finished in second with 240,500. Other notables that used their last chance for a shot at the juicy prize pool include Orestis Kanakopoulos (156,000), �230 Opening Event champion Narcis Gabriel Nedelcu (147,500), Alexandru Farcasanu (138,500), Marius-Alexandru Gicovanu (123,500), Andrei Racolta (119,000), Georgios Tavoularis (52,000) and Dimitros Dimitrios (45,500).

Among those that busted without anything to show for on the final starting day were such familiar names as Cristinel Dumitru, Evangelos Bechrakis, Viliyan Petleshkov, �230 Opening Event runner-up Eduard Norel, Radu Lungu, Emanuel Flesner, Danut Chisu, Alin Grasu and Natan Grossman.

Other big stacks and notables still in contention for Day 2 include Radu Pitic (273,500), Iulian Iacob (249,000), Sergiu Cornea (232,000), Day 1a chip leader Nicolae Sorin Son (203,000), Catalin Pop (185,500), Dan Murariu (188,500), Luca Moschitta (185,000), Romania's first-ever WSOP bracelet winner Alexandru Papazian (162,000), Ran Azor (86,000) and Manfred Sierke (47,500).

Cuceanu Wins Ladies Event and 888poker LIVE Barcelona package

There were a total of 26 entries in the �60 Ladies Event, and the top five spots took home a portion of the �1,222 prize pool, all of which were taken by local players from Romania. Carmen Zainescu, who won the last Ladies Event in the Grand Ballroom, had to settle for second place while Maria Cuceanu took home �500 and a package for 888poker LIVE Barcelona with a value of �1,880.

^{Photo courtesy of 888poker.}

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