The first day of the first EPT ever held in Berlin has come to a close. Just under 200 of the 388 players who began the day survived to return on Thursday for Day 2. Leading the pack is Kfir Yamin, who amassed 213,500 during the day's nine levels.
Team PokerStars Pros George Danzer, Katja Thater, Benjamin Kang, Sebastian Ruthenberg and Vicky Coren will also be back for Day 2, along with Juha Helppi, Barney Boatman, and Jeff Sarwer. To check and see the entire list of players that made it through to Day 2, check out our chip count page.
Tom McEvoy lasted through most of Day 1a, but couldn't hold on during the last level. Arnaud Mattern, Ludovic Lacay, Johan Van Til and Alexia Portal were also eliminated during the day.
Day 1b will begin at noon on Wednesday , and it could be a sell-out crowd. Plenty of big names will be on hand tomorrow. We're expecting Luca Pagano, Boris Becker, Lex Veldhuis, Noah Boeken, and Chad Brown, just to name a few. Keep your browers pointed at PokerNews to follow all of the action live.
The clock has been stopped with 12 minutes remaining. Each table will play six more hands before calling it a night.
There's a big line of people waiting to register for Day 1b. Some players who've finished registering are hanging out in the Hyatt bar. We spotted Craig Bergeron, Carter Phillips, and a few other Americans we'll certainly see more of tomorrow.
We've started scanning the room for end-of-the-day chip leaders and found Kfir Yamin to be sitting behind a stack of 215,000 chips. He looks to lead the way right now. Both Michael Huber and Ruslan Prydryk also boast big stacks and could catch up to Yamin if things goes really well for them in the last half hour today.
After a tablemate raised to 3,000, Leo Margets repopped him to 8,000. He made the call. Two swift checks followed the flop. It was check-check again after the turn. The river was the , and that was enough to end the checking. Margets' opponent bet 11,000, and she reluctantly made the call. He tabled for a rivered two pair. Margets looked like she wanted to show her hand for a moment but fought the impulse and just tossed it toward the muck. After the hand, she was down to about 64,000.
The button opened to 2,500, and Joao Barbosa called from the small blind. Both checked the flop. The turn was the , and Barbosa checked again. His opponent bet 3,000, and Joao made the call. The river brought the and a third check from Barbosa. The button duly played his part, betting 6,000. Barbosa quickly raised to 23,000, and without skipping a beat, his opponent mucked and looked like he should have known better. Barbosa is up to 74,000.
One particularly fearsome table now features Juha Helppi, [Removed:197], Michael Keiner and Priyan De Mel all sitting in a row. We pity the other side of that table...
There was a raise to 2,000 from a relatively short-stacked gentleman in mid position, but he soon laid it down when George Danzer made it 10,000 from the small blind.
Danzer is now up to an extremely comfortable 90,000 or so.
Sam Chartier has been on fire since the dinner break. He raised to 2,500 in late position, and the big blind three-bet to 7,000. Chartier moved all in, and the big blind called to put his own tournament life at risk. Time for the big reveal. Less suspenseful than usual as the whole raise-reraise-shove-call scenario played out without any tanking at all.
Showdown
Chartier:
Big blind:
The board ran out . Chartier knocked out his opponent and in the process built his stack to 94,000.