Today, the €1,100 Eureka Main Event occupied the entire main room of the tournament area, spilling over into the side rooms of the Hilton Prague at times as the latest 2023 PokerStars European Poker Tour series continued with another action-packed day.
This year’s event featured six starting flights, which generated 4,403 entries, exceeding last year's 4,017 entrants and creating a prize pool of €4,226,880. Of the combined entries, 659 players are set to return for Day 2 and will already be in the money.
Day 1f alone attracted 855 entries, and 127 players of those made it through after the fast-paced turbo structure brought play to a finish following 18 full levels.
As players bagged and tagged, Thomas Syversen of Norway emerged as the flight chip leader with 667,000. He's had some impressive finishes in the Norwegian Championship in the past, including a six figure victory and a handful of five figure scores. Still, the prizes in the Eureka Main Event are big and bold enough that Syversen will still be playing for a career best.
Not far behind him was Gheorghe Butuc, who was the only other player to breach the 600k mark in Day 1f, bagging 608,000. In third place was Maksim Shornikau with 483,000.
Eureka Main Event Day 1f Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thomas Syversen | Norway | 667,000 |
| 2 | Gheorghe Butuc | Moldova | 608,000 |
| 3 | Maksim Shornikau | Belarus | 483,000 |
| 4 | Agostino Ascone | Italy | 473,000 |
| 5 | Henrik Juncker | Denmark | 466,000 |
| 6 | Grzegorz Grochulski | Poland | 457,000 |
| 7 | Raoul Kanme | Netherlands | 429,000 |
| 8 | Alexander Norden | Sweden | 418,000 |
| 9 | Simon Lauchenauer | Switzerland | 404,000 |
| 10 | Stephane Abehassera | France | 400,000 |
The overall chip leader heading into Day 2 is still Mengshi Tian, who bagged 889,000 chips in Day 1e and remains way out ahead of the competition.
Day 2 will kick off on Saturday, December 9th at noon local time.
Stay tuned as PokerNews follows the Eureka Main Event deeper into the money and all the way down to a winner.
