"ElkY" is here, after all. His hair looks the same to us. He's just taken his seat in the two hole of the televised featured table, which we have quite literally no access to. We can see Friend of PokerStars Pierre Neuville to his immediate right, though, and November Niner John Racener is also at that table, in the five seat.
Alongside Vicky Coren, one of the biggest home names playing today is Friend of PokerStars, Teddy Sheringham. He just picked up a pot from John O'Shea (the Irish poker player, not the Irish defender who plays for Manchester United) by betting 700 on the 
flop.
Fresh from coming in 5th place at EPT Vilamoura, the former England international footballer will hoping for a deep run similar to the one he had in this event last year.
We see Bertrand Grospellier on our table draw for today, but we haven't seen him in his chair yet.
"Elky's getting a haircut, and he didn't turn up on time."
Such was overheard from a member of the PokerStars staff just a moment ago, and we'll therefore take it as fact. We'll scratch the elk from our starting list today, and we expect to see he and his freshly-trimmed mane in the building tomorrow instead.
Team PokerStars Pro Vicky Coren won this tournament a few years ago for a very chunky £500,000 becoming the first woman to take down an EPT. She has a tough table here though with EPT Berlin winner Kevin MacPhee to her right, Team PokerStars Pro Celina Lim, EPT Copenhagen winner Anton Wigg and English Poker Open champion Fabian Quoss.
Coren just called a 2,000 chip bet on a 
but folded when her opponent fired 4,000 on the 
turn.
Level: 2
Blinds: 75/150
Ante: 0
Tough though it is to get to them, there are some very interesting tables here today.
Our particular favourite so far is rather a mixed bag - Sorel Mizzi, Barry Shulman, Amsterdam Master Classics winner Kristoffer Thorsson, EPT Grand Final runner up Josef Klinger, British circuit regular Rumit Somaiya and Hungarian Johnny Cash lookalike Sandor Demjan.
There's plenty of other good ones too - check these out:
- Ivan Demidov, Jani Sointula, Shannon Shorr and Tristan Clemencon
- Benny Spindler, Barry Greenstein, Max Heinzelmann and James Keys - the latter enjoying his birthday today. Happy birthday, James!
- Anton Wigg, Kevin MacPhee and Vicky Coren
- Julien Brecard, Catherine Hong, Thorsten Schafer and Konstantin Bucherl
Eric Liu, who finished 4th to Michael Martin here in 2008 (and also represents Liu best tournament cash) is dressed as a banana. Not any specific type of banana or even a plantain, but just a regular old yellow one.
He looks pretty grumpy about it too.
Time is running out to play in our exclusive $10,000 Sunday Million Freeroll from PokerStars on October 10. You can win your seat in the biggest regular weekly online tournament in the world for just 75 VPPs - but you only have until September 30th (23:59 GMT) to qualify.
A young man we believe to be American Paul McCaffrey has just been eliminated.
McCaffrey raised to 250 before the flop, and he found two callers to his left. On the button, Tom Marchese three-bet to 1,150, and McCaffrey came right back with a four-bet that quickly folded the players in the middle. Marchese five-bet it, though, and McCaffrey finally smooth called to see a flop.
It came 
, and McCaffrey check-called a bet of 5,200 from Marchese. The turn was a blank looking 
, and this time Marchese made it 5,300 to call. McCaffrey obliged him once again, and the filled out the board on fifth street.
When McCaffrey checked one final time, Marchese set him all in for his last ~10,000 chips. The call came, and the dealer yelled, and the cards were on their backs. McCaffrey was showing 
for the overpair, but it was no good. Marchese's 
were ahead the whole way, and they've notched the first KO of Day 1a.
Meet your chip leader, Tom Marchese. He's got just shy of 60,000 now.
There was an opening raise to 300, called on the button by Greg Mueller, the small blind Manuel Bevand before Jan Ludwig Meinberg reraised to 1,600 from the big blind. All three players called this reraise, meaning the pot was 6,400 before the flop.
Meinberg fired out 4,500 at the 
board and the original raiser flat-called. Mueller and Bevand both folded, giving us the dangerous on the turn.
Meinberg quickly checked and his opponent fired out 7,875 which had the German tanking for several minutes before releasing his hand.
