Gianluca Speranza Tops Day 1B, Main Event Draws 716 Entrants

Day 2 of the PokerStars Championship Monte Carlo €5,300 Main Event fell short of 2016’s mark, but added 481 additional entrants, with 222 of them advancing to Day 2 and Gianluca Speranza finished on top of the chip counts with 201,500

Speranza fell short of Jeffrey Hakim’s Day 1A count of 305,300, but falls more in line with Stefan Schillhabel’s 203,000 as the second stack of Day 1A.

Monaco resident and old-school poker folk hero, Patrik Antonius had a successful day on the felt, ending with a six-figure stack. Antonious doesn’t play many tournaments anymore – his last coming August of 2015 – but does travel to Las Vegas for the occasional nosebleed game. 

Liv Boeree, Igor Kurganov and Daniel Negreanu were the only PokerStars Team Pros to advance from the second flight – but they all have vastly different Day 2s ahead of them. Boeree is in the top third of the counts, Kurganov holds an average stack and Negreanu has an uphill climb returning with less than a starting stack.

The total field came in at 716 entrants with Day 2 hosting 329 returning players. Last year’s Main Event in Monte Carlo pulled 1,098 entrants and players will look forward the prize pool announcement when play resumes.

Day 2 has cards fly at noon local time and they’ll play another eight 75-minute levels before finishing for the night. On Sunday tournament organizers opened the one-of-a-kind retractable roof covering the poker room and they hope to have It open again should weather allow.

Top Ten Chip Counts

1. Giancluca Speranza – 201,500
2. Michal Kollowicz – 197,300
3. Xavier Rouayroux – 192,000
4. Makram Saber – 192,000
5. David Urban – 188,700
6. Raffaele Sorrentino – 175,200
7. Remi Castignon – 160,000
8. Christopher Frank – 152,000
9. Vasyl Zabrodskyy – 146,400
10. Aleksei Istomin – 144,600