PokerStars.fr EPT Deauville High Roller Day 1: Troyanovski Leads Star-Studded Field

February 07, 2013

Matthew Pitt Senior Editor

Thursday marked the start of the €10,300 PokerStars.fr European Poker Tour High Roller, a tournament that some regard as the festival’s flagship event. For their €10,300, players received 50,000 tournament chips, a superb blind structure that increased every 60 minutes and the chance to pit their wits against some of the best poker players in the business.

By the time play came to an end there were 83 unique entries and a total of 14 reloads in the pot, and with registration open until the end of the first level on Day 2, there could well be a €1,000,000 prize pool. Fifty-one players managed to survive Day 1.

The man who is in the best position to win the lion’s share of this huge prize pool is Vladimir Troyanovski, who managed to turn his starting stack into 266,200. Troyanovski got off to a great start when he hit quads with 9♦6♥ on a 6♣6♦6♠J♦K♦ board, and got paid off on the turn and river by Roberto Romanello.

Troyanovski added even more chips to his stack when his A♠K♦ bested the ace-high of Christophe Benzimra on a 8♥4♠K♥9♣Q♣ board. Troyanovski, who finished second to Vanessa Selbst in the $25,000 High Roller at the recent PCA, is now a major threat in this tournament.

Some of the other big stacks include Kevin Vandersmissen (262,000) and JC Alvarado (246,700). Team PokerStars Pros Vicky Coren (52,900) and Eugene Katchalov (90,800) also managed to navigate their way through to Day 2.

Although players were permitted to make one reload of their stack if they lost their initial stack, we will not be seeing a lot of big names on Day 2. The likes of Roberto Romanello, PCA champion Dimitar Danchev, Dominik Nitsche and Kent Lundmark all used a single bullet and decided not to reload. Michael Tureniec,Steve O’Dwyer and Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier each busted out, reloaded and busted out again – an expensive day of poker for that talented trio.

Day 2 starts at 12:00CET on Friday, and the PokerNews Live Reporting team will be on the tournament floor bringing you all of the action from this stellar event.

Day 1 Top 10 Chip Counts

Position	Name	Chips
1	Vladimir Troyanovski	266,200
2	Kevin Vandersmissen	262,000
3	JC Alvarado	246,700
4	Jean Noel Thorel	176,500
5	Steven Silverman	175,100
6	Marvin Rettenmaier	168,700
7	Timothy Adams	166,900
8	Adrian Mateos	161,800
9	Kevin MacPhee	158,100
10	Mikhail Korotkikh	154,300