Mikko Tiitinen Shines on Day 1a of the Coolbet Open Main Event
Day 1a of the Coolbet Open Main Event hosted by Olympic Park Casino and Hilton Tallinn Park was a huge success with 182 entrants ponying up the €550 buy-in.
This represents a larger turnout than the record 130 entrants that participated in Day 1a of the last Coolbet Open in May. Tomorrow's action is expected to be much bigger for the second and final opening flight with many players just getting to town today and most of the online qualifiers yet to join the action.
Players kicked off today's deep-stacked action with 30,000 in chips and competed for ten blinds levels of 45 minutes each. Unlimited reentries remained open throughout the day and will stay open until the end of the first blind level on Friday's Day 2.
A total of 63 players survived the first of two opening flights with Finland's Mikko Tiitinen in the chip lead with 245,000 in chips followed by Estonia's Kaido Koorits in second place for 213,500.
Closely behind was defending Coolbet Open Main Event champion Mathias Siljander from Finland with a stack of 195,500. PokerNews interviewed Siljander at the end of Level 6 when he had just 18,000 in chips. He mentioned he wanted to bag a big stack and went on a tear during the next blind level to get most of the chips he wound up bagging.
Also bagging big stacks were Sweden's Vishal Joshi (fourth - 182,200) and Norway's Lise Hoyforslett (fifth - 178,000).
Day 1b of the Main Event will kick off at 12 p.m. local time tomorrow with many new players and many of the same players from today that were unable to survive.
As was the case today, the PokerNews live reporting team will be back on the floor to provide complete coverage tomorrow and beyond until a winner is declared.
*Lead image courtesy of Natalie Black / Coolbet Open.