Jen Mason - 14,000
David Colclough - 16,000
Simon Young - 11,000
Richard Gryko - 1,700. Richard is on the felt after an early clash.
Andrew Black - 13,000
Andreas Hoivold - 11,000
Johnny Lodden - 10,500
Martin Wendt - 12,000
The first break is after level 2 in around 30 minutes.
High pressure tournaments bring their own problems, with players occasionally needing to recover from bad beat syndrome. The EPT seems to provide for every eventuality if these nurses are any indication.
Davinder Singh Lomba from Singapore and Sameer Kahruna from India. Both will be eclipsed by one of tomorrow's entrants, Mr James Honeybone. Honeybone hails from New Zealand(!)... and he gets my vote for best surname in this event.
EPT Main Events won by players that are NOT from Norway seem to be getting rarer. The list of Norwegians running for the Warsaw title is very long indeed so don't be surprised if we get another one.
For the benefit of those with money riding on Norway, here are the players we know about so far:
Day 1A players
Jan Rune Bråthen
Finn-Erik Egeland
Henning Granstad Andreas Hoivold
Morten Huseby Håkenstad
Kristian Kjendalen
Tore Lagerborg
Bastian Landhagen
Johnny Lodden
Thomas Mathiesen
Martin Ostby
Gunnar Ostebrod
Kai Danilo Paulsen
Sondre Sagstuen
Jan Olav Sjavik
Bjorn Erik Suhr
Sverre Sundbo
Petter Sundby
Frode Walle
Day 1B
Anders Berg
Torstein Berget
Henning Bolstad
Lars Eidissen
Orjan Gronmo
Arild Helland
Orjan Holt
Arve Johansen
Espen Uhlen Jørstand
Marius Skoglund Torbergsen
Åge Spets
Christopher Ulsrud
The first player break of 15 minutes has occurred, but for 10 players there is no coming back. We started with 136 hopefuls but there will be 126 of them resuming on Level 3. Blinds are now PLN 75-150 and the average chipstack is 10,793.
A quick scan of the deserted tables suggests that Roland de Wolfe has edged up to around 15k, the Pole Marcin Horecki slipped a little to 12k, Dave Colclough around 9k and Andrew Black slipping to 5k. My 20 Zlotys stake on Black is looking shaky.
Our press office is several flights of stairs away from the basement casino where the event is played. Fortunately there is a lift that takes us, the press, half the way there.
Roland de Wolfe just took a hit to his stack.
Hand action from Andrew Black's table to follow shortly.
Simon Young, (SuffolkPunch on Pokerstars.com) is holding his own on a tough table. He has 17.5k in chips and is flanked by WSOP Gold Bracelet holder Praz Bansi on his left and another leading UK player, Jim Kerrigan, on his right. Plus he has Andrew Black from Ireland and some strong Swedish opposition as well.