Cengiz Ulusu Stars Under the TV Lights to Lead at EPT Berlin, Day 1b
Yesterday was just the warm up to the carnage that ensued today at the European Poker Tour Berlin. The Grand Hyatt Hotel has a svelte figure and it could not contain the weight of the Day 1b crowd. Nine tables had to be opened up in the Spielbank Berlin over the road to ease the stretching seams. A total of 502 players took their seats, more than twice that of yesterday’s 243.
Cengiz Ulusu made record headlines today as he finished as our chip leader with a massive 242,800 chips, and is the overall Day 1 leader, topping Vladimir Geshkenbein’s 201,600 from Day 1a. Normally, this is where we'd explain a little about how he won his chips, but as the Turk was on the TV table for most of the day, you’ll have to wait until it airs on TV or on Pokerstars.TV.
Instead, we can tell you the champion here from two seasons ago, Kevin MacPhee cracked sets and flopped sets on his way to a finishing 139,100. Davidi Kitai won races, dropped back a little by losing races, and recovered to end with 197,700. Then there’s Calvin Anderson (205,100), Mario Puccini (198,900), Marc Wright (182,600), Dan Smith (173,600), Michiel Brummelhuis (173,500), and Konstantinos Tsirakidis (168,000) who have all moved into contention.
Team PokerStars Pro suffered a bloody day as their numbers were culled considerably. Victor Ramdin was particularly unlucky as he was up to 122,000 at his high point but a series of hands went very badly for him. He flopped top set in one hand but lost out to an opponent who made a straight. Then, he got his last 30,000 in with pocket queens only to run into pocket kings. Reigning world champion, Pius Heinz, ran his queens into Bahadir Kilickeser’s 
and Ali Azabdaftar’s 
. Kilickeser was the happiest at the end though as his hand only found two friends to make quads.
We will be seeing see Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier (40,900) coming back for day 2 along with Viktor Blom (109,900), George Danzer (54,100), Alex Kravchenko (49,000), Nuno Coelho (8,500), Matthias De Meulder (14,500), and Friend Of PokersStars Charlotte Van Brabander (37,300).
The remaining 329 players from both starting flights will all be in the same room tomorrow. Play will resume at midday (CET), and as ever the PokerNews crew will be here all day to bring the action.
For now, if you're in town, then here is Lynn Gilmartin's user guide to seeing the sights of Berlin.