Season 9 of the 2012 PokerStars.net European Poker Tour continued yesterday with Day 1a action from the Prague €5,300 buy-in Main Event, which attracted 336 players. Today, a whole new set of players will pack the Hilton for Day 1b action, and expectations are high that last year’s record field of 722 entrants will be surpassed.
The EPT Prague has proven to be one of the most popular stops since its introduction to the schedule back in Season 4, which is when Arnaud Mattern defeated a field of 555 players to capture the title and €708,400 first-place prize. Mattern, along with EPT6 Prague winner Jan Skampa and the defending champ Martin Finger, were all in action on Day 1a, but only Finger would keep his tournament hopes alive.
Some other notables who were among the 180 players to advance yesterday were Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Richard Toth, Eugene Katchalov, Juha Helppi, Fabrice Soulier, Todd Terry, Eoghan O’Dea, and chip leader Iosif Beskrovnyy, who bagged 239,000 chips.
Who will join this impressive list of players in pursuit of an EPT title? Will a record-setting field create the largest prize pool in EPT Prague history? What time will Jason Mercier make it to the tournament floor after staying up all night playing open-face Chinese poker?
We’re expecting a massive turnout for Day 1b of the EPT9 Prague Main Event, which will include a laundry list of pros such as Johnny Lodden, Marc-Andre Ladouceur, Davidi Kitai, Ludovic Lacay, Andrew Chen, Bryn Kenney, Matt Waxman, David Vamplew, Grayson Ramage, Philipp Gruissem, Faraz Jaka, Ana Marquez and Ville Wahlbeck, just to name a few.
EPT Prague Champions
| Season | Entrants | Prizepool (EUR) | Winner | Prize (EUR) |
|---|
| 4 | 555 | €2,530,240 | Arnaud Mattern | €708,400 |
| 5 | 570 | €2,764,500 | Salvatore Bonavena | €774,000 |
| 6 | 586 | €2,842,100 | Jan Skampa | €682,000 |
| 7 | 563 | €2,730,550 | Roberto Romanello | €640,000 |
| 8 | 722 | €3,501,700 | Martin Finger | €720,000 |
Join the PokerNews Live Reporting Team at 12:00 CEST, which is just over an hour from now, for continuing coverage of EPT Prague.
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