EPT Malta's High Rolling Start

EPT Malta's High Rolling Start

Thursday, 19 March 2015

The decision to add a €25,000 High Roller to this season's EPT Malta festival proved to be a wise one as 86 players decided to ante-up for a shot at glory.

The unique addition to the schedule of events helped get the festivities off to a glittering start on Wednesday and after the betting came to a close it was Ukraine's Oleksii Khoroshenin left leading the way.

Weaving his way past 67 entries and 19 re-entries, Khoroshenin managed to rake in 277,600 chips after ten levels of play to top the end-of-day chip counts ahead of Nick Petrangelo (239,000) and Piotr Franczak (205,600). A lot of Koroshenin's success came in the last level of the day after his queens full of three allowed him to rake in more than 100,000 chips against Ihar Soika.

After a flurry of pre-flop betting, Khoroshenin and Soika had their chance to attack a 4h 3d Qd flop. A 9,000 continuation-bet by Khoroshenin was called by Soika which prompted the dealer to lay down the 6d on the turn. Another back-and-forth then took place before the 3s on the river allowed Khoroshenin to bet 53,000 chips. A reluctant call by Soika was enough for Khoroshenin to show his pocket queens for a full house and scoop a session defining pot.

Also making it through the session with a playable stack was an international contingent of notable pros, including Dan Smith, Martin Finger and Philipp Gruissem. Of course, for those pros to rise, a number of similarly skilled players had to fall.

Joining the list of casualties on Day 1A was the likes of Jorryt van Hoof, Igor Kurganov and Vanessa Selbst. Fortunately for those who fell during the opening session, re-entries are allowed before the start of Day 2 which means the 40 survivors from Day 1A could be see a few familiar faces joining them at the felt later today.



Tags: EPT Malta High Roller, Oleksii Khoroshenin