2009 PokerStars.com EPT San Remo

€5,300 EPT San Remo Main Event
Day: 1b
1a1b2345
Event Info

2009 PokerStars.com EPT San Remo

Final Results
Winner
Winning Hand
a♥a♠
Prize
€1,508,000
Event Info
Buy-in
€5,000
Prize Pool
€5,713,300
Entries
1,178
Level Info
Level
30
Blinds
50,000 / 100,000
Ante
10,000

Lets Get It Started in Here

[user75032]
[user75032]
Day 1b of 2009 EPT San Remo starts at 2pm.
Day 1b of 2009 EPT San Remo starts at 2pm.
Day 1b of the 2009 PokerStars.it European Poker Tour San Remo event is upon us. Day 1a play yesterday saw 578 players spread across the three rooms of the tournament area, with roughly 40 percent of them making it to the end of the day. Several people were vying for the chip lead at the end of the day. A late surge by Dragan Galic to more than 100,000 chips gave him that honor.

Today we expect another 600 players to take their seats at the tables. Eight levels of play (with another staggered dinner break) should whittle them down substantially. Play is scheduled to kick off at 2pm, in about thirty minutes, but things were slightly delayed yesterday due to the number of players in the field. A similar situation may occur today.

Regardless of when we get started, keep your browser pointed to PokerNews for all the live updates from the tournament floor!

Nothing Happening Yet

[user46392]
[user46392]
With today's field almost certain to be even larger than yesterday's, players have not yet been allowed into the tournament area in an effort to prevent chaos from erupting. Nevertheless, dealers are seated and we expect a tide of poker players to begin to flood the card room within the next few minutes.

Shuffle Up and Deal!

[user75032]
[user75032]
It takes a long time to get 600 players into the tournament room and seated, but that feat has finally been accomplished. After a few brief opening remarks, cards are in the air.

Level: 1

Blinds: 25/50

Ante: 0

Who's Here?

[user75032]
[user75032]
The Antonius Table
The Antonius Table
We're slowly making our way through the massive field, trying to pick out the notable players. We've already spotted several Team PokerStars Pros, including Peter Eastgate, Hevad Khan and Isabelle Mercier; Patrik and Maya Antonius, who somehow managed to draw the same table (along with Bill Chen); and Marcel Luske. That's only a small sampling of the players here. A few stragglers are still shuffling to their seats and -- to be honest -- yesterday there were players in the field that we didn't spot for several levels. It's just not that easy when there are 600 people jammed in the room.

Familiar Faces All Over the Shop

[user46392]
[user46392]
Wow, it is a super-star-studded field today.

We have the legendary Irish Open maestro Liam Flood and technically English but played-for-Ireland international football star Tony Cascarino flying the flag for Ireland, while nipping over to the UK we have EPT Baden champion Julian Thew, WSOPE runner-up John Tabatabai, soap-star-turned-poker-pro Michael Greco and UK circuit regular Steve Jelinek. Jelinek in particular is happy to be here -- yesterday he couldn't even get into the room to register for the waiting list, but in what he calls his, "Best bluff of the week so far," he snuck his way to the front of the queue and bagged himself a seat.

Quite frankly we have more big names here than will fit into a post, so check out the chip counts page during the next half hour or so for an overview of our extraordinary field.

Antoniuses to Split

[user46392]
[user46392]
Calm yourself ladies, there's no marital strife yet, but TD Thomas Kremser has decided that Mr. and Mrs. Antonius should not be seated at the same table. Maya has been moved to a seat at a table directly behind Evelyn Ng, giving players in that area two beauties with which to distract themselves.

Tags: Patrik Antonius

Tables of Doom

[user46392]
[user46392]
Like we said, there are really too many tables to strike fear into your average qualifier's heart to mention, but here are a few of the more frightening so far:

- Johnny Lodden, Ramzi Jelassi and John O'Shea

- Katja Thater and Dario Minieri

- Ilari Sahamies and John Tabatabai

- Julian Thew and Luca Pagano

- Jani Sointula and Jonas Molander

Good luck, everyone else at those tables...

Chips Ahoy

[user75032]
[user75032]
One of the things that we noticed right away today is that the players were given completely different chips than the players were given yesterday. We asked the tournament staff why this would be the case and were informed that the chips in use today are the regular EPT chips. They weren't used yesterday simply because they didn't arrive at the venue in time to be used. One can idly speculate what the reason for the delay might be -- lost baggage, weather delays, and strikes in France all seem equally plausible -- but it seems that these will be the chips used for the rest of the tournament.

Level: 2

Blinds: 50/100

Ante: 0

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