We understand that Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier shoved on the river of a board and Andrea Piva called all in and turned over . ElkY mucked and dropped down to just 5,000. He was folding like a trooper for the rest of our spell on the floor, but he's going to have to get the last of his chips in soon.
Kevin MacPhee eliminated Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier just before the end of the day when his held against the Frenchman's on a .
Max Lykov attempted a big bluff on Vladimir Geshkenbein, the Team Pro had initial 3-bet to 5,200 over an opening raise before Geshkenbein 4-bet to 13,400. The original raiser folded and Lykov clicked it back to 27,400 but then snap-folded when his fellow Russian moved all-in.
EPT Vienna winner Michael Eiler was eliminated right at the death after a day of tough grinding.
We don't wish to cast aspersions on yesterday's small but perfectly formed field, but today's Day 1b has been astounding in terms of the quality of the field and pace of play.
Our 302 starters whittled themselves down to just 168 in eight short levels, and everywhere one looked there were familiar faces getting busy with their stacks. One table featured ElkY, Luca Pagano, Kevin MacPhee, Kevin Stani, Liv Boeree and James Sudworth midway through the day. At one point when half the field had gone on their dinner break, the remaining half alone featured 11 former EPT winners.
Michael Tureniec, fresh off his victory at EPT Copenhagen a few weeks ago, amassed a huge stack in the latter stages if the day, finishing up on 186,800. To his immediate left friendly Belgian Philip Meulyzer also had a great day. He won a three-way preflop showdown with aces to propel him briefly into the chip lead, and he finished the day with 188,100.
The overall chip leader by a massive margin, though, is former APPT Macau High Roller champion Vladimir Geshkenbein. Among other things, he busted Team PokerStars Pro Jan Heitmann, and goes into Day 2 with a terrifying 253,700.
Other folks of note still in include many of the denizens of the Table of Death - Liv Boeree, Luca Pagano, Kevin Stani and Kevin MacPhee are all still in, although ElkY fell just at the end of the day. We'll be back at 2pm tomorrow for more exciting thrills, spills and poker chills!