Registration has been closed now, and the tally of runners for Day 1b looks to be 352 in total. It's very nearly official, but we're just waiting for the triple-check to be completed and the final number to be announced.
If that number is a good number, our field will be filled out at 477 players.
David Vamplew opened to 500 on the button and Roman Romanovskyi defended in the big blind to see a flop of flop which both players checked.
Romanovskyi then led out for 800 on the turn and Vamplew made the call to see a blank on the river, the Russian fired again, to the tune of 1,800 and Vamplew made another quick call.
Romanovskyi showed but Vamplew had him pipped kicker-wise with to take down the pot.
We've just stumbled across Cesar Garcia Dominguez at Table 35, and he's sitting rather pretty right now. Dominguez has got just about 100,000 chips towered in front of him, and as the first player to hit the century mark today, he's the chip leader for now.
The big stack from Day 1a bagged up just over 150,000 chips.
Rien Willem De Vries fired 2,800 on a flop of against David Benyamine and the Frenchman made the call to see the on the turn which both players checked. The river was the and De Vries checked a second time and Benyamine nonchalantly threw out a 5k chip putting De Vries into the tank.
The latter eventually folded and Benyamine flashed saying, "About all you could beat..."
Eli Elezra declared to Benyamine, "You had him beat!"
Kevin MacPhee is up to 55,000 after he doubled through last season's EPT Madrid champion Ivan Freitez.
We missed the hand but MacPhee informed us that he flopped top set and bet the flop and turn before shoving the river. Freitez called all the way and mucked upon seeing his opponent's hand.
Not long after the Venezuelan opened to 650 from the cut-off and was called by the small and big blind. All three checked the flop to see the turn of a board. Freitez bet 2,225 but folded when check-shoved on.
There seems to a lack of energy in the upstairs room, everyone seems fairly lackadaisical which might be because the room is relatively quiet and now less than a third full or maybe there was just a lull in the action while I was there.
Jonas Molander just picked up a small pot, after he opened to 700 and got called by Gilbert Diaz, Mike McDonald and Gianluca Speranza - none of which were interested in calling the Swede's 1,700 continuation bet on the board.