The Festival Series Bratislava €550 Main Event added 90 new entries during the first two blind levels of Saturday's Day 2 to blossom to 1,025 entries for a €486,875 prize pool. The 398 Day 2 entries whittled past the money bubble to just 16 hopefuls remaining.
Slovakia's Peter Jesko bagged the overnight chip lead with 3,255,000 for one physical chip more than Sweden's Bo Alm who managed to advance with 3,250,000. Spain's David Trueba (3,015,000) also finished the penultimate day with more than 3 million.
Meanwhile, all eyes are on Netherlands' Michel Molenaar who advanced with a shorter stack of 1,270,000. The Dutch poker hero won The Festival Series Bratislava Main Event last year when at Banco Casino and has been hungry to become the first two-time The Festival Series Main Event champion by winning the same event in back-to-back years.
The start of the day chip leader Kelly Kellner made a grand entrance but hit the rail near the bubble after losing what he described as six flips in a row. JJ Hazan had a similar story with his fifth place stack. Meanwhile, players including The Festival Series founder Martin "Franke" von Zweigbergk, The Festival's Karev Tralla, and Adam Tomasson managed to cash today despite starting off with fresh stacks.
Check out the final Day 2 chip counts below and stay tuned for the Day 3 seat draw. Cards will be in the air shortly after 1 p.m. with the live stream kicking off 30 minutes later at TheFestivalOG Twitch channel and other social media.
| Place | Player | Country | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Peter Jesko | Slovakia | 3,255,000 | 65 |
| 2 | Bo Alm | Sweden | 3,250,000 | 65 |
| 3 | David Trueba | Spain | 3,015,000 | 60 |
| 4 | Ilija Savevski | North Macedonia | 2,650,000 | 53 |
| 5 | Laszlo Burany | Hungary | 2,570,000 | 51 |
| 6 | Gabriel Rymar | Poland | 2,355,000 | 47 |
| 7 | Marios Pavlou | Cyprus | 2,070,000 | 41 |
| 8 | Ziga Klopcic | Slovenia | 1,795,000 | 36 |
| 9 | Christoforos Christoforou | Cyprus | 1,660,000 | 33 |
| 10 | Nidal Dawoud | Denmark | 1,510,000 | 30 |
| 11 | Michel Molenaar | Netherlands | 1,270,000 | 25 |
| 12 | Krisztian Kis | Hungary | 1,235,000 | 25 |
| 13 | Nicolas Sievers | Germany | 1,195,000 | 24 |
| 14 | Mohammed El Khatib | Denmark | 1,180,000 | 24 |
| 15 | Maged Aziz | Egypt | 1,125,000 | 23 |
| 16 | Samuel Stranak | Slovakia | 685,000 | 14 |
