Day 1a of the €550 Main Event in the books, then. It’s safe to say that the 2026 Coolbet Open has not been off to a slow start; quite the contrary.
Take the Main Event in particular; the first starting-day flight out of a total of three attracted 169 entries, meaning that €83,600 was contributed to the prize pool. These are great numbers for the first day; it’s an educated that tomorrow’s Day 1b will get even bigger. Day 1c is also featured on tomorrow’s schedule; it’s going to be yet another action-packed day at Olympic Park Casino & Hilton Tallinn Park Hotel. Reminder that late registration will be open during the first few levels of Day 2 as well; it wouldnn’t be surprising to see a total prize pool bigger than the €234,175 (last year’s prizes).
Back to today. There were multiple familiar names in the Day 1a field, such as Swedish poker legend Johan Storåkers, No Filter Poker Series founder Mounir Tajiou, former Kings of Tallinn Main Event winner Johan Creutz, Estonian poker virtuoso Tarmo Tammel, Fantastic Ladies in Poker (FLIP)-founder Daiva Byrne, and prominent Lithuanian player Egidijus Matonis. Some of them, but not all of them, were amongst the 67 who were fortunate and skillful enough to find a Day 2 bag. They will be reunited with their ceramic chips on Friday, September 4, when the penultimate day of the tournament kicks off at 12:00. The one who has earned him the best presumptions is Iceland’s Baldvin Borgarsson; with 179,000 in the bag, he is the current tournament chip leader.
Considering there are two more starting-day flights to go, there will undoubtedly be more prominent names in the mix. The arguably biggest name who paid Olympic Park Casino & Hilton Tallinn Park Hotel a visit on Wednesday was 1998 WSOP Main Event winner Scotty Nguyen. While Nguyen spent the day getting familiar with the venue, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him begin his Main Event venture tomorrow.
The theme of the Tuesday was, indeed, Coolbet with a capital C. A big shoutout to the Coolbet crew and everyone else who’ve been working setting up a stunning atmosphere at the venue; they’ve managed to create something unique, and it’s amazing to see the Coolbet Open being played where it was founded nine years ago.
Also, thanks to all who’ve been tuning into the live blog today. It was indeed a light day, but fear not; as the Main Event reaches its more crucial stages, no significant action will go missed. Tomorrow’s coverage will kick off at 12:00 when Day 1b commences, and just like today, poker.pro live reporter Christoffer Karlén will not rest until the last hand has been played.
That wraps up today’s blog…well, almost. Tune back in approximately 10 minutes for the Day 1a chip counts. Tomorrow around noon, poker.pro media coordinator Jason Glatzer will upload a longer recap which will include not only the highlights from Day 1a of the Main Event, but also the results and key numbers from all the side events that were played during the Tuesday. Last but not least, a report similar to the one on account of Glatzer will be posted on the Swedish sister site, se.poker.pro, which will focus on the Swedish results from today. That one will, of course, be written in Swedish.
Thanks again, and see you all tomorrow for the third day of the 2026 Coolbet Open.
