Main Event
Day 1a Completed
The 2012 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final
Main Event
Day: 1a
Event Info
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
The 2012 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final
Buy-in
€10,000
Entries
665
Level
33
Blinds
100,000 / 200,000
Ante
30,000
![[user76079]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
Level 8
: 300/600, 75 ante
The prodigal son has come back to his rightful home. That’s how it feels for all of us involved on the EPT. Madrid was great as a venue for last season’s Grand Final but the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour is back in the grandest of homes, and we don’t want to move out again.
There are certain tournaments on the global poker calendar that can’t be missed and this is one of them. Everybody who is everybody will be here over the course of the week. Day 1b tomorrow will be big in terms of numbers, but today’s 271-strong field was big in talent.
Out of the 165 players who made it through Martin Kabrhel showed the most talent today, along with a little luck, to bag up 167,800 chips. He got off to a great start when he busted a player whilst holding nine-deuce. The flop had a low board containing two little ducks and his opponent couldn't release his pocket tens. From there he reached the dizzy heights of 200k after playing "silly" as he described it, before he dropped back to where he sits until day 2.
Kabrhel played the latter stages of the day along side Freddy Deeb and John Eames, who were also two of the bigger stacks. They finished on 114,600 and 157,200 respectively. Just one table along from them sat David "Doc" Sands who treated himself to a long massage that helped him to finish on 163,300.
Other notables who made it through included the last winner here Nicolas Chouity (38,700), Phil Ivey (72,000), Ondrej Vinklarek (83,200) and Steve O'Dwyer (101,600).
The full force of Team PokerStars Pro will be on show tomorrow but 14 were in attendance today. Mickey Petersen from Team Online performed the best with 98,800. Those who failed to make it through included Arnaud Mattern and Jan Heitman.
We'll post the full end of day chip counts here when we get them through shortly. Day 1b kicks off at 12pm (CET) tomorrow and it's going to be big, very big. Join the PokerNews team back here then as we slowly work towards another great champion.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
167,800
-32,200
|
-32,200 |
|
160,300
70,300
|
70,300 |
|
157,200
-22,800
|
-22,800 |
|
136,900 | |
|
121,100
78,100
|
78,100 |
|
114,600
-400
|
-400 |
|
113,900 | |
|
112,900
66,900
|
66,900 |
|
110,900 | |
|
104,800 | |
|
104,400 | |
|
101,600
58,600
|
58,600 |
|
||
|
101,300 | |
|
99,800
13,800
|
13,800 |
|
|
99,000 | |
|
98,800
53,800
|
53,800 |
|
||
|
96,300 | |
|
89,600
13,600
|
13,600 |
|
85,700
44,700
|
44,700 |
|
85,600 | |
|
83,800
-6,200
|
-6,200 |
|
83,700
-1,300
|
-1,300 |
|
83,200
16,200
|
16,200 |
|
83,100 | |
|
82,100
33,100
|
33,100 |
Level 8
: 300/600, 75 ante
Each table will play three more hands before play ends for today.
Level 8
: 300/600, 75 ante
Melanie Weisner and Victoria Coren are level in the €5,000 heads up, the last two standing from a field of 27, which they're celebrating by cracking open a bottle of red wine. Read more by clicking the link through to the PokerStars Blog.
Xuan Liu and Jonathan Karamalikis just had an all-in, pre flop, raising game. Karamalikis was seated on the button with Liu in the small blind. When the cards were turned over it was a flip with Liu at risk of elimination.
| Karamalikis |   |
| Liu |   |
Board: 
Karamalikis wins the flip and the booby prize for Liu is a Day 1 exit.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
76,000
46,000
|
46,000 |
|
Busted |
Dan Shak has just doubled up JC Alvarado. We believe the money went in on either the flop or turn on a board of 
. Shak was holding 
and Alvarado was holding 
. The river was the 
and Alvarado now has 60,000 with Shak on 18,000.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
60,000 | |
|
18,000
-22,000
|
-22,000 |
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
Busted | |
|
Busted | |
|
Busted | |
|
|
Busted | |
|
Busted | |
|
|
||
|
Busted | |
|
Busted | |
|
|
||
|
Busted | |
|
Busted | |
|
||
|
Busted | |
|
Busted | |
|
||
|
Busted | |
Freddy Deeb has a big stack, but he's sandwiched between the two biggest stacks in the room in Martin Kabrhel (200k) and John Eames (180k).
Kabrhel asked if he was the biggest stack in the room and I confirmed that I thought he was. JC Alvarado piped in to say, "You should ask him about the hand that got him there!"
Kabrhel refused to give me the details but did say. "I just play funny, you know my style."
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
200,000
99,000
|
99,000 |
|
|
180,000
7,000
|
7,000 |