Davide Andreoni Leads After Day 1a of EPT Campione

There were 178 players who started today and it was Davide Andreoni who has set the early pace at EPT Campione, finishing the day with 175,100. Andreoni had several tussles against countryman Dario Nittolo whom he sat next to but the former came out ahead by the end of the day with the overall chip lead.

Given the high number of Italians playing today, an often-used strategy would be to play fairly straight-forward to reduce the potential volatility but not so from Nick Yunis. The Chilean was seen playing almost every hand, his stack jumping around the place from 30,000 up to 100,000 and back down again. Winning significant pots against both Simon Persson and Rasmus Nielsen, Yunis finished on a high, second only to the aforementioned Andreoni with 169,200. They'll be joined there by former EPT champion Roberto Romanello (50,800), Marion Nedellec (51,200) and Rasmus Nielsen (41,000).

There were only four PokerStars Team Pros playing today and they suffered mixed results. Russian Alex Kravchenko (23,600) and the home hope, Luca Pagano (16,200) managed to make it through but both will be back on Wednesday with fairly short stacks and in need of an early double up.

Theo Jorgensen joined after the first couple of levels but he didn't last long. First he saw his jacks cracked by Anton Ionel's A-3 which hit trip threes on the flop. The Romanian then finished him off soon after with kings against king-jack. Usually very steady, Pierre Neuville also suffered a surprisingly early exit as did Mads Wissing and the player that Phil Hellmuth once labelled 'the worst player of all time' Cristian Dragomir.

Other players who didn't make it through the day included former EPT Prague runner-up Emiliano Bono, James Dempsey, former Irish Open champion James Mitchell, McLean Karr, Yordan Dimitrov and Casey Kastle. They'll have to enjoy the relaxing views and sights that Campione and nearby Lugano have, as well as the multitude of side events that the casino will be putting on over the next few days.

Although today was relatively quiet, we're expecting a much bigger field for tomorrow with many more Team Pros including: Arnaud Mattern, ElkY, Eugene Katchalov, Liv Boeree, Lex Veldhuis, Victor Ramdin, Vanessa Selbst, Marcin Horecki and Dario Minieri.

We'll be returning tomorrow starting once again at 2pm CET for eight more levels of poker fun so don't forget to follow us here!