The fourth stop along the Season six circuit of the PokerStars.net European Poker Tour kicked off Tuesday at the Casinos Poland at the Hyatt Hotel in Warsaw, Poland. Day 1a saw 88 ambitious players pony up 25,000 PLN (approximately €6,000 or $9,000) and take to the felt with EPT glory in their sights. When all was said and done, 64 survived to move on to Day 2.
Team PokerStars Pro was out in full force as Alexander Kravchenko, Luca Pagano, Arnaud Mattern, Angel Guillen, JC Alvarado, and Marcin Horecki were among the competitors. Defending WSOP-champion Peter Eastgate was also afield although he arrived a little late. EPT Barcelona-champion Carter Phillips was in the field along with two other players who made that final table, Mihai Manole and Santiago Terrazas. Atanas Gueorguiev placed fourth in this event last year and returned to make another deep run.
Everyone from that list moved on to Day 2 except for the two Mexican Pros, Guillen and Alvarado. Fresh off his Barcelona win last month, Phillips had the best day of all.
Just a short while into the event, Phillips was seen behind a tower of chips as he climbed to the top of the leaderboard. A couple of players got a little too careless against him when he was holding some big overpairs in three hands, and these players ended up handing Phillips all their chips. Phillips ended the day with 194,850, nearly double those of his closest competitor.
Seated across from Phillips at the same table was Pagano and the two maneuvered around each other all day, attacking the other players at the table. Pagano did very well in his own respect, bagging up 101,575 chips to put him in third place. PokerStars online qualifier Clayton Mozdzen sits in second place with 103,250.
The numbers were slightly down from last year’s event, but Day 1b is expected to make up for it. So far on the list of entrants are Team PokerStars Pros Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Katja Thater, Florian Langmann, Sebastian Ruthenberg, Dario Minieri, Thierry Van Den Berg, and William Thorson. Scotty Nguyen, Gus Hansen, Shaun Deeb, and Ludovic Lacay, fresh of his third-place finish at WPT Marrakech, will also be on hand.
The second flight takes place today, Wednesday, at 12:30 p.m. CEST and PokerNews will have all the updates for you. Also, follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news, and also become our fan on Facebook.
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