There's something to be said when, an hour into play, we're still finishing our sweeps of the room to see who's here. That something might be, "Poker players never turn up on time"; or it could be "The media room is damn far from the tournament floor". Most likely it means that the sights of the poker world are focused on Monte Carlo for the next few days as everyone and his brother (literally, in Jesper Hougaard's case) turns out for this EPT Grand Final, making it the richest tournament in Europe and one of the richest in the world.
In a way it makes sense that the richest poker tournament in Europe should take place here in Monte Carlo on the shores of the Mediterranean. "Europe is expensive," Greg Raymer explained to a player at his table. "Monte Carlo makes Europe look cheap."
Currently seated behind one player is a very small boy in designer jeans and an Armani t-shirt, apparently railing who we hope is his dad. Have to say the other players at his table look none too happy about having their play scrutinized by a youngster at least 10 years away from legally sitting at the felt, but as yet he has not been thrown out so there's not much they can do. Very odd.
We really can't understate how many highly skilled and accomplished players have turned out for Day 1a. Team PokerStars seems to have sent its entire stable of Pros. The first sweep of less than half of the room has already turned up Dennis Phillips, Andre Akkari, Alexandre Gomes, Lee Nelson, Greg Raymer, Luca Pagano and Chris Moneymaker. Full Tilt has its own representatives in the field, including Phil Ivey and Erik Seidel.
That's not to say that there aren't dozens of other recognizable faces in the tournament room. We're slowly filling up the chip counts page with their names as we have the opportunity.
Spotted making entertainment for himself in this rather slow portion of the day: recent EPT San Remo finalist William Reynolds, eyeing up the button emblazoned with the legend "THOMAS KREMSER".
"Who's Thomas Kremser?" he enquired innocently of the dealer. "He is the tournament director," replied the dealer. "Oh yeah, him" continued Reynolds, who enjoyed the personal ministrations of Mr. Kremser at the San Remo final table for almost a whole day just last week. "He's a good guy."
Just before Daniel Negreanu's, "Shuffle up and deal!" got the first cards flying, an announcement was made about the side events and Battleships (where two players sit laptop-to-laptop to play heads up) surrounding the Main Event.
A last minute switch has seen the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha turned into a Six-max Hold'em tournament, and the $500 rebuy is now a shootout. Either way, these players can find something to fill their rest day should they progress to day two and run out of sights to see in the tiny principality of Monaco. And just in case €10,000 isn't enough to be playing for at once, they can, for this week only, challenge each other online to Battleships for up to an eye-watering $100,000 in the breaks.
The numbers of players turning out for the springtime EPTs like early daffodils are pretty impressive. Here at the Grand Final, they're looking on target to break last year's 842, but probably not quite break the magic four figures like San Remo just did. There are still empty seats for today's flight, and there's a last-minute supersatellite running this evening, so with a conservative estimate of 400 playing right now and 500 playing on the traditionally more popular 1b, it's an impressive turnout.
Those taking their seats as the first level gets underway include Barry Greenstein, Johnny Lodden, Luca Pagano, Greg Raymer and Erik Seidel.
Ok, this is a pretty star-studded field so to be honest, there are a lot of Tables Of Potential Doom right now, but doomiest among them seems to be home at the moment to Greg Raymer, Luca Pagano, Mike "Timex" McDonald, online stars Mark Flowers and Ben Fineman and recent WSOP bracelet winner Davidi Kitai. Good luck, to everyone at that table...
With a blast of very loud music, the curtains suddenly opened, and -- get this -- the retractable roof on the venue was pulled back to bathe the card room in blinding sunshine. A million cameras appeared from nowhere. However, it wasn't to last -- a table full of Team Pokerstars pros including Daniel Negreanu, Greg Raymer, William Thorson and Barry Greenstein descended the stairs into the card room, and with the spectacular entrance achieved, the roof closed and the room sunk into darkness once more.
The picturesque Cote d'Azur
Good morning and welcome to Monte Carlo, home of the rich, the famous, and for this week only, around 1,000 lucky poker players who have either managed to satellite into this or can afford the jaw-dropping €10,000 to buy in directly.
Outside the weather is glorious over the bay, but here in the Sporting Club at the Monte Carlo Bay resort they haven't even opened the curtains as dealers begin to take their tables and bigger-than-usual 30,000 starting stacks appear in neat rows on the felt.
Among the poker luminaries confirmed to play today are Barry Greenstein, Johnny Lodden, John Juanda, Erik Seidel, Chad Brown and Jason Mercier. As is to be expected with such a large field, it looks as though we'll be kicking off a little later than the published noon start time, but watch this space.
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