Welcome To The Penultimate Day
The PokerStars.it European Poker Tour Sanremo Main Event is down to it's final 16 players. It's not time for a final just yet today, eight players will have their hopes dashed at the last minute and will have to leave before tomorrow's final table is set.
Yesterday the play went down from 39 to 16 players. Once the final 24 players mark was reached, action moved over to the Casino Sanremo theater on the lower floor of the casino. Two outer tables and a main feautre table all literally in the spot lights, made for an amazing decor. Three weeks ago during the EPT Vienna they played poker in a palace, now they're pitching cards in a classic Italian theater. How awesome is the European Poker Tour?
Though the eight players that will fall today will be disappointed, they go home anything but empty handed. The first player to fall will take home €22,575 and that amount goes up to €41,930 for the player finishing in ninth here today. There's almost half a million waiting for the winner, but that's something to worry about tomorrow.
Jordan Westmorland is the chip leader going in, with over three million in chips. He has a big lead over the number second in chips, Raul Mestre with 1.7 million. Team PokerStars Pro's Alex Kravchenko (743,000) and Vicky Coren (535,000) are also still in, but are getting a bit short. There's a bunch of local heroes (Giacomo Fundaro; 1,460,000, Andrea Benelli; 1,340,000), a group of online wizards (Lukas Berglund; 1,088,000, Ariel Celestino; 376,000) and a group of players with online roots who've by now have more than proven to stand the live poker arena test easily as well (Jeffrey Hakim; 422,000, Stephen Chidwick; 833,000). The day will start with some minutes still left in level 24 (12,000/24,000, 3,000 ante).
Get yourself ready for a day of action as the chips will start flying at noon local time, in a little over an hour. PokerNews will bring you live updates from both the live streamed feature table, as the secondary table where the cameras aren't constantly buzzing. Also keep your eye on our €10,000 High Roller Day 2 coverage, which kicks off at noon local time as well.