Just over two months ago, at 4:30 in the morning, Aaron Pahlawani won one of the first-ever Diamond Poker Series trophies by shipping the €5,200 Opener at the PLO Grand Slam for €176,100. Today, he is among the 42 players to return to Arena Casino Tirana for the final day of the very same tournament.
While Pahlawani's stack of 526,000 puts him near the bottom quarter of the leaderboard, he still has almost 44 big blinds to play with when Day 2 kicks off today at 2 p.m. local time. Pahlawani's heads up opponent from last November, Pavel Izotov made it through as well, playing a stack of 665,000 as he aims to claim the title this time around.
However, they have their work cut out for them as both stacks dwarf in comparison to Youness Barakat, who captured the chip lead with a monstrous stack of 3,389,000. Interestingly, Barakat took home the bronze medal during the previous edition, looking to improve on that placement this time around. Closely following Barakat in the counts is Diamond Poker Series newcomer Nino Pansier with 3,281,000, while Day 1b chipleader Fabian Riebau-Schmithals sits in third with 2,976,000.
Other big stacks include PLO wizards Gergo Nagy (1,872,000) and Ronald Keijzer (1,569,000), while high-stakes hold'em regular Tom Vogelsang showed his four-card abilities by bagging 1,714,000.
Day 2 Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Youness Barakat | Italy | 3,389,000 | 282 |
| 2 | Nino Pansier | Netherlands | 3,281,000 | 273 |
| 3 | Fabian Riebau-Schmithals | Germany | 2,976,000 | 248 |
| 4 | Harry Casagrande | Austria | 2,435,000 | 203 |
| 5 | Sean Rafael | United States | 2,257,000 | 188 |
| 6 | Gergo Nagy | Hungary | 1,872,000 | 156 |
| 7 | Tom Vogelsang | Netherlands | 1,714,000 | 143 |
| 8 | Ronald Keijzer | Netherlands | 1,569,000 | 131 |
| 9 | Leonid Yanovski | Israel | 1,546,000 | 129 |
| 10 | Bernard Larabi | Hungary | 1,175,000 | 98 |
Other notable names who have a guaranteed seat at the start of the day include bracelet winners Tomas Ribeiro (1,024,000), Elie Nakache (909,000), Robert Cowen (814,000), Dario Alioto (618,000), and Nikolaos Lampropoulos (579,000). Diamond Poker Series Ambassador Max Kruse brings 293,000 to the table today, slightly more than the starting stack of 200,000.
With the starting flights getting 199 entries in total, the €1,000,000 guaranteed prize pool has barely not been met yet. However, with late registration remaining open throughout the first level of play today, the expectation is that the guarantee will be surpassed quite easily.
The first level of Day 2 will be 6,000/12,000 with a 12,000 big blind ante, with a break after to allow people to fire one final bullet. Afterward, the field will play as many 45-minute levels as it takes to play down to a winner. A break will be had after every three levels, with a dinner break scheduled around 6:30 p.m. Judging by last time, a marathon session might be in the cards for those lucky enough to run deep.
PokerNews will be live on the floor until the very end, so stay tuned to find out if Pahlawani can successfully defend his title or if a new PLO Grand Slam champion will be crowned.
