Adinolfi Bags Big in Day 1b of WPT Prime Sanremo
Day 1b of the €1,100 WPT Prime Sanremo Championship Event has concluded here at Casino Sanremo, with 26 players progressing to Day 2 from the field of 204. The prize pool currently stands at €271,660, with two more starting flights to come.
Mario Adinolfi of Italy, who was the chip leader for the vast majority of the day, leads the way after bagging a monstrous stack of 985,000. He holds a significant chip lead over his closest challengers in the flight, Marcin Puczylowski of Poland (743,000) and Fabrice Ferrando of France (705,000).
Adinolfi's biggest score to date is $164,103 for his fourth place finish in the Main Event at WPT Vienna back in 2011, and he will be aiming for another tilt at a WPT title here.
Puczylowski boasts recorded live earnings of over $325,000 and is looking to book his first cash at a WPT event. Ferrando's biggest recorded live score to date is for less than $6,000 and he will be hoping to beat that figure in the coming days with a deep run here.
End of Day 1b Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Country | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mario Adinolfi | Italy | 985,000 |
| 2 | Marcin Puczylowski | Poland | 743,000 |
| 3 | Fabrice Ferrando | France | 705,000 |
| 4 | Shlomi Malka | Israel | 648,000 |
| 5 | Laurent Michot | France | 561,000 |
| 6 | Kym Nguyen | France | 521,000 |
| 7 | Gianfranco Iaculli | Italy | 502,000 |
| 8 | Devid Berlin | Lithuania | 489,000 |
| 9 | Mehdi Dhouimer | France | 480,000 |
| 10 | Eric Abbas | France | 453,000 |
Notable names Claudio Di Giacomo (391,000), Laurent Polito (236,000) and Andrew Hawkins (138,000) have also progressed from Day 1b.
Players such as William Kassouf and Romain Le Dantec failed to make the cut, while Ionel Serbu was the unlucky player to bubble in a brutal cooler.
The final starting flights, Days 1c and Day 1d, are scheduled for Saturday June 8 at noon and 8:00 p.m. local time respectively. Day 1c will follow the same structure as Days 1a-1b, while Day 1d is is a turbo flight featuring 20-minute levels, but otherwise following the same structure as previous flights.
Days 2 and 3 are due to take place on June 9 and June 10 respectively at 1:00 p.m. local time, and will feature 60-minute levels.
Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews for all your coverage of the event, as we see who will navigate the final starting flights to join the 37 players already through to Day 2.