At the Onyx Club High Roller Series at the Onyx Club in Cyprus, not only was Day 2 of the NLH Grand Slam played yesterday, but the highly anticipated Main Event also kicked off. In the $50,500 NLH Grand Slam, players from the D-A-CH region had made good progress, with two of them managing to reach the final table at the Merit Royal Diamond Cyprus. However, in the Main Event, they let others take the lead for now.
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Event #3: $50,500 NLH Grand Slam – Day 2
To the 36 survivors from Days 1A and 1B, another 12 late entries were added on Day 2, increasing the total number of participants to 95 as short stacks. The 48 Day 2 players set out in the poker room at the Merit Royal Diamond to hunt for the 14 paid places, which were to be paid out of the $4,800,000 prize pool.
Shortly before the money bubble, Jessica Teusl was eliminated, along with $100k High Roller Champion Jean-Robert Bellande, in the same hand by Joseph Oren and his AK. They were in good company, as Adrian Meteos, $10k Opener Champion Alex Kulev, and Roby Young also busted on the soft bubble. Ultimately, the French exceptional player Thomas Eychenne became the bubble boy.
This meant the top 14 were in the money, which also applied to 4 German-speaking high rollers. Among the first to make their way to the cashier, or rather forced to, was Justin Steinbrenner. The German finished the Grand Slam event in 13th place, which was rewarded with $100,000.
One pay jump higher, the High Roller MTT ended for Daniel Thaller, who became the 10th bubble boy of the final table. As a consolation prize, he took home $120,000.
At the 9-handed final table, the goal was to play down to 7 finalists. However, within 4 hours of play, only Gha Iakobishvili left the final table. The Israeli continued to impress with his performance in the Grand Slam, reaching his third final table in his 3 played events.
Previous and remaining payouts after Day 2:
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (USD) |
| 1 | $1,250,000 | ||
| 2 | $870,000 | ||
| 3 | $575,000 | ||
| 4 | $430,000 | ||
| 5 | $340,000 | ||
| 6 | $265,000 | ||
| 7 | $210,000 | ||
| 8 | $175,000 | ||
| 9 | Gha Iakobishvili | Israel | $145,000 |
| 10 | Daniel Thaller | Austria | $120,000 |
| 11 | Maher Nouira | Tunisia | $120,000 |
| 12 | Fahredin Mustafov | Bulgaria | $100,000 |
| 13 | Justin Steinbrenner | Germany | $100,000 |
| 14 | Ottomar Ladva | Estonia | $100,000 |
Finally, the tournament directors decided to end the playing day early and start the final with 8 instead of 7 players. The chip leader going into the final day is the newly crowned WSOPP Bracelet winner Tom Vogelsang. A large portion of his chips comes from Johan Guilbert, better known as the poker streamer “YoH ViraL”, who ran into the Dutchman’s turned flush with his flopped straight.
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The Frenchman did not come to the final table as a big stack, but only gained momentum when he caught his opponent’s bluff with pocket aces against Gha Iakobishvili. In third place is Joseph “Handz” Oren, who was on the better side of a setup of aces versus kings against Thomas Mühlöcker.
The Austrian goes into today’s final with just one big blind. He is guaranteed $175,000, and the next pay jump is $35k. The online crusher is not alone in the final from a German-speaking perspective.
He is joined by Matthias Eibinger. The Austrian high roller was mostly card dead at the 9-handed stage until he found pocket aces in his hole cards, only to see his opponent Oren flop a set against him. However, a set also materialized for the Pokercode head with another ace, so we will see him at the final table today as fifth in chips with 30 BBs.
The chip counts at the final table:
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
| 1 | Tom Vogelsang | Netherlands | 9,625,000 | 48 |
| 2 | Johan Guilbert | France | 8,450,000 | 42 |
| 3 | Joseph Oren | United States | 7,800,000 | 39 |
| 4 | Quan Zhou | China | 6,350,000 | 32 |
| 5 | Matthias Eibinger | Austria | 5,950,000 | 30 |
| 6 | Sergio Fernandez | Spain | 5,000,000 | 25 |
| 7 | Igor Yaroshevskyy | Ukraine | 4,050,000 | 20 |
| 8 | Thomas Muehloecker | Austria | 250,000 | 1 |
You can find a PokerNews Live Blog of Day 2 here!
Event #6: $25,500 Main Event – Day 1A
In the Main Event, 65 entries chose Tuesday as their starting day. When the playing day ended in Level 16 (Blinds 20,000/40,000-40,000) with 19 minutes of play remaining on the tournament clock, 10 high rollers were still in contention. Unfortunately, there were no German-speaking players among them.
Alexey Borovkov impressively bagged the chip lead. The Russian only started the Main Event late, shortly before the second break, where in two consecutive hands he first eliminated Christopher Pütz and then did the same to Adrian Mateos and Kenar. On the money bubble, the Russian then pulled off an extraordinary call. After Elias Gutierrez check-called two barrels from Borovkov out of position, the Spaniard made a huge bet on the river with the fourth spade. Without a spade for a flush, or a strong hand, Borovkov called with a pair and was proven right against Gutierrez’s complete bluff. After these events, Borovkov unsurprisingly finished as the clear chip leader.
The other big stack after Day 1A was Ottomar Ladva from Estonia, who only really got going at 12 players remaining on the soft bubble, but still early enough before the end of the playing day. First, he eliminated Eelis Parssinen in 12th place (JJ>AK) and then, immediately after, bubble boy Adrian Strate (AJ>A9).
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The chip counts at the end of Day 1A:
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
| 1 | Alexey Borovkov | Russian Federation | 5,335,000 | 133 |
| 2 | Ottomar Ladva | Estonia | 3,690,000 | 92 |
| 3 | Mikalai Vaskaboinikau | Belarus | 1,490,000 | 37 |
| 4 | Elias Gutierrez | Spain | 1,440,000 | 36 |
| 5 | Ramin Hajiyev | Azerbaijan | 930,000 | 23 |
| 6 | Parahat Nurmuhammedov | Turkmenistan | 890,000 | 22 |
| 7 | Kirill Shcherbakov | Russian Federation | 810,000 | 20 |
| 8 | Alexandre Reard | France | 635,000 | 16 |
| 9 | Istvan Birizdo | Hungary | 615,000 | 15 |
| 10 | Artur Martirosian | Russian Federation | 430,000 | 11 |
You can find a PokerNews Live Blog for Day 1A here!
The Onyx High Roller Series Schedule:
