Feature Coverage Day 4 | 2018 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo©Casino EPT

04-28-2018 02:34 UTC+2

€1,100 EPT National: Mrakes Leads, Lew and Vrakas Among Final 24

Yori Epskamp

Can Georgios Vrakas achieve a stunning third National victory?

It took two days to whittle a gigantic field of 1,501 players in the €1,100 EPT National down to the final 24. The players duked it out all day in the cash game room of Le Sporting at the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort and broke down to 24 shortly before the end of the day. After the redraw took place, just a few more hands were played until chips were bagged for the night.

Michal Mrakes was the one walking away with the biggest stack of them all (6,070,000). Despite his commanding lead, the chipleader was the first to put things into perspective.

"I was just really lucky. I didn't need any skills, I really mean it," Mrakes told PokerNews.

"I hit my two-outer twice, four-outer once, I won three-way all in with jack-nine suited against pocket eights and ace-nine. Twice, I had aces into kings. If you run like this, anybody can be chipleader and you don't need any skills. Oh, I forgot to mention I twice flopped a straight against a set from a big stack, we got it in and I held twice. This was definitely the luckiest day I've ever had," Mrakes said.

Team PokerStars Pro Online Randy "nanonoko" Lew extended on his good run from Day 1 and made the final 24 with 2,010,000, good enough for the eight place overall after two full days.

"I've been practicing a lot and I think it's paying off," the Team PokerStars Pro said about his tournament game to PokerNews.

"I pretty much maintained a big stack throughout the whole tournament so far. I just played really and I never really got short. I was usually around double average stack in the tournament," the online cashgame machine added.

Asked whether he's a tournament pro now, Lew laughed heartedly: "Not until I win."

I feel like I just want to be a better tournament player. I think I can have much better results and I kind of want to prove myself that I can do that first, then figure out what to do next," he concluded.

Next to Mrakes and Lew, the name of Georgios Vrakas stands out among the final 24. Vrakas might be considered the world's premier specialist when it comes to these National events, after winning last year's €1,100 National Championship in Prague (€338,000) and the €2,200 National High Roller in Barcelona (€330,000). A third win in the span of just eight months would put Vrakas in unmatched territory at these midstakes tournaments. To achieve the improbable, Vrakas has to come from behind, as his stack of 1,150,000 puts him in the bottom tier of the leaderboard.

Other players that made their way to the final day include Federico Petruzzelli (5,685,000), French pros Gaelle Baumann (3,345,000) and Guillaume Diaz (2,050,000), as well as PokerStars Festival London High Roller winner and Platinum Pass owner Dragos Trofimov (1,175,000). They'll all return on Saturday at noon local time with blinds at 25,000/50,000 and play down until the winner is crowned.

€1,100 EPT National Day 3 Seating and Chip Counts

Table	Seat	Player	Country	Chip Count	Big Blinds
1	1	Aleksei Istomin	Russia	775,000	16
1	2	Yurii Chernenko	Ukraine	670,000	13
1	3	Randy Lew	United States	2,010,000	40
1	4	Abraham Passet	Germany	1,290,000	26
1	5	Guillaume Diaz	France	2,050,000	41
1	6	Sufragiu Sorin	France	1,345,000	27
1	7	Jacques Der Megreditchian	France	920,000	18
1	8	Pascal Tribolet	France	935,000	19

2	1	Gaelle Baumann	France	3,345,000	67
2	2	Dragos Trofimov	Moldova	1,175,000	24
2	3	Victor Ilyukhin JR	United Kingdom	1,800,000	36
2	4	Jonathan Proudfoot	United Kingdom	1,170,000	23
2	5	Samy Boutaleb	France	2,160,000	43
2	6	Ionut Laurentiu Trifu	Romana	1,735,000	35
2	7	Jeremy Palvini	France	1,500,000	30
2	8	Laszlo Barthi	France	1,555,000	31

3	1	Clemente Malheiro Carreira	Portugal	600,000	12
3	2	Federico Petruzzelli	Italy	5,685,000	114
3	3	Michal Mrakes	Czech Republic	6,070,000	121
3	4	Giuseppe La Guardia	Italy	1,359,000	27
3	5	Abdullatif Attia	France	2,210,000	44
3	6	Danilo Cangianiello	Italy	1,065,000	21
3	7	Fred Weiss	France	2,425,000	49
3	8	Georgios Vrakas	Greece	1,150,000	23

Tags: Federico Petruzzelli Gaelle Baumann Georgios Vrakas Michal Mrakes Randy Lew

04-28-2018 01:45 UTC+2

55 Players Survive as €2,200 EPT National High Roller Concludes First Day

Yori Epskamp

After 15 levels of 40 minutes each, Day 1 of the €2,200 EPT National High Roller at the 2018 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo©Casino EPT has concluded its first of two days. 358 players showed up for the bigger buy-in National event, with 104 of them opting for a reentry to create a total field of 462 players a €924,000 prize pool and a first place prize of €173,000.

Chipleader after the first day is Matous Houžvicek of the Czech Republic, putting the Czechs in the lead in both National events. Houžvicek bagged 494,000, plenty more than Mamouni Smain (442,000) and Dario Sammartino (407.500). Spain's Leo Margets had a strong showing as well, ending the day in 5th place with 367,000 in chips.

Jack Salter, who was the chipleader throughout the early stages of the day, sits in 9th with 258,000. Other notables that made it through included EPT12 Grand Final winner Jan Bendik (224,000), online wizard Conor Beresford (223,500), Rainer Kempe (121,500) and Jose "Nacho" Barbero (94,000).

Saturday at 12:30 p.m. local time, the remaining players will return to play down until a winner is crowned, promising a long day ahead. Their seating and chip counts for Day 2 are as follows;

€2,200 EPT National Day 2 Seating and Chip Counts

Table	Seat	Player	Country	Chip Count	Big Blinds
1	1	Alexandre Reard	France	205,500	41
1	2	Mikhail Soltanov	Russian Federation	160,000	32
1	3	Ville Tapio Sissonen	Finland	76,000	15
1	4	Dmitry Shchepkin	Russian Federation	259,500	52
1	5	Benjamin Saada	France	389,000	78
1	6	Chen An Lin	Taiwan, Province of China	89,500	18
1	7	Malek Grabsi	France	155,000	31
1	8	Lily Kiletto	United States	231,000	46

2	1	Massou Cohen	France	54,500	11
2	3	Franck Makaci	France	212,000	42
2	4	Leonardo Parmiggiani	Italy	216,000	43
2	5	Joseph Sabe	France	124,000	25
2	6	Arseniy Meshcheryakov	Russian Federation	112,000	22
2	7	Jan Bendik	Slovakia	224,000	45
2	8	Dmitriy Shilnikov	Russian Federation	61,000	12

3	1	Antonio Angel Ponce Guirao	Spain	84,000	17
3	2	Franz Ditz	Germany	141,000	28
3	3	Hani El Assaad	Lebanon	138,000	28
3	4	Jack Salter	United Kingdom	258,000	52
3	5	Christopher Chaudey	France	122,000	24
3	6	Honglin Jiang	United Kingdom	207,500	42
3	7	Leo Margets	Spain	367,000	73
3	8	Dario Sammartino	Italy	407,500	82

4	1	Arthur Conan	France	37,000	7
4	2	Ran Azor	Israel	212,000	42
4	3	Rainer Kempe	Germany	121,500	24
4	4	Fady Kamar	Lebanon	76,000	15
4	5	Loic Menneteau	France	39,500	8
4	6	Jeffrey Hakim	Lebanon	165,000	33
4	7	Thomas Pettersson	Sweden	93,000	19
4	8	Yorane Kerignard	France	164,000	33

5	1	Dan Djorno	France	206,500	41
5	2	Mamouni Smain	Canada	442,000	88
5	3	Daniel Robert Montagnolli	Austria	61,000	12
5	4	Chaofei Wang	China	157,500	32
5	5	Sirzat Hissou	Germany	61,500	12
5	6	Xiaojie Cheng	China	326,000	65
5	7	George Ana	Romania	116,000	23
5	8	Yin Liu	China	229,500	46

6	1	Aviv Meir	Israel	70,500	14
6	2	Danny Covyn	Belgium	72,000	14
6	3	Benny Glaser	United Kingdom	95,000	19
6	4	Raffaele Carnevale	Italy	139,500	28
6	5	Conor Beresford	United Kingdom	223,500	45
6	6	Karim Abdelmoumene	France	70,000	14
6	7	Dinesh Alt	Switzerland	353,000	71
6	8	Tiziano Di Romualdo	Italy	55,000	11

7	1	Julian Thomas	Germany	117,000	23
7	2	Paul Theobald	Germany	101,000	20
7	3	Matous Houžvicek	Czech Republic	491,000	98
7	4	Colin Robinson	United States	165,500	33
7	5	Nacho Barbero	Argentina	94,000	19
7	6	Francesco Delfoco	Italy	90,000	18
7	7	Thierry Gogniat	France	85,000	17
7	8	Isabel Baltazar	France	228,000	46

Tags: Conor Beresford Dario Sammartino Jack Salter Jan Bendik Leo Margets Mamouni Smain Matous Houžvicek Nacho Barbero Rainer Kempe

04-27-2018 21:44 UTC+2

Loaded Final Six to Battle for €1.5 Million in Monte Carlo €100K

mnuwwarah

High-stakes assassin Christoph Vogelsang has worked himself into pole position to add €1.5 million and another super high roller title to his list of poker accomplishments.

The silent, scarf-clad German has the chip lead with the streamed final table of six set in the €100K Super High Roller at 2018 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo©Casino EPT He holds a hair over 3 million in chips with blinds and antes at 10,000/25,000/25,000.

Vogelsang entered as one of the top stacks and stayed there for most of the day before taking a commanding advantage late when ace-king held against a massive three-bet shove from Mikita Badziakouski, who had a dominated ace-ten.

Vogelsang may have been due for success here as the former Super High Roller Bowl champ has come up mostly empty in the past in the PokerStars Monte Carlo high rollers with just one min-cash in a €25K.

The road forward is almost sure to be difficult, as he's facing four fellow superstars in Sam Greenwood (2,065,000), Isaac Haxton (1,680,000), Ole Schemion (1,490,000) and Justin Bonomo (1,045,000). The final player advancing into the money — the bubble also burst — is Iranian high roller Ali Reza Fatehi.

While observers will doubtless tag him the underdog, Fatehi has the chips — a solid stack of 1,840,000 — and has shown he can compete before when he had less experience than he does now.

"Of course [I'm excited]," he said. "Two years ago, in the very first tournament I played, I got third here."

Indeed, that cash was worth €828,500, still the best he's booked. He can do better than that on Saturday with a top-two placing. Fatehi also recently tasted victory at a high roller event in Cyprus, although this task will naturally be far taller, with the rewards far greater.

Fatehi was nearly cooked in one of the first big hands of the day when he got in there with sevens and had two outs against the kings of Timothy Adams. He found a seven in the window and the spin was on.

Ali Reza Fatehi looks to better his third-place result from this event in 2016.

Later, Fatehi busted Julian Thomas with aces against ace-ten. He then found the call button with top pair, top kicker holding ace-jack when Badziakouski tried check-shoving the river with a total ace-king airball and Fatehi called off to double.

What looked like it could be an extended bubble — the average stack was 62 big blinds — burst when Fatehi stuck around with four-two of hearts and backdoors a flush when Jan Schwippert three-barreled. The German bet most of his stack on the river and sent his hand to the muck after calling off his last crumbs.

The final table gets rolling at noon local time here in Monaco, with the live stream starting a bit after that. Someone will be taking home €1,520,000, so come back to PokerNews for more feature coverage of the festival and head over to the PokerStars Blog for hand history updates of the final table if you can't tune in to the stream.

Seat	Player	Country	Chip Count
1	Ali Reza Fatehi	Iran	1,840,000
2	Ole Schemion	Germany	1,490,000
3	Christoph Vogelsang	Germany	3,020,000
4	Isaac Haxton	United States	1,680,000
5	Sam Greenwood	Canada	2,065,000
6	Justin Bonomo	United States	1,405,000

Tags: Ali Reza Fatehi Christoph Vogelsang

04-27-2018 20:24 UTC+2

Registration Closed in €2,200 High Roller; Salter Runaway Chipleader, Winner Receives €173,000

Yori Epskamp

With eight levels of 40 minutes in and the dinner break just done, late registration has now closed for the €2,200 EPT National High Roller. A total of 462 entries has been made, including 104 reentries. With 211 players left, the field has shed just over half its players.

There are plenty of familiar faces across the room, including some of the players that played the (Super) High Rollers such as Rainer Kempe, Orpen Kisacikoglu, Mustapha Kanit, Markus Durnegger, Ryan Riess, Dominik Nitsche, Maria Ho, Steffen Sontheimer, Steve O'Dwyer and Igor Kurganov. Jack Sinclair, Raffaele Sorrentino, Maria Lampropulos and Morten Mortensen are also still in contention. Runaway chipleader in the early stages is Jack Salter, having amassed already over 200,000, which is ten starting stacks. Other players on top of the counts are Alexandre Reard (140,000) and Dario Sammartino (100,000).

Kurganov was seated at the same table as his partner Liv Boeree, but the Russian Team PokerStars Pro had to make his way to the rail shortly after the dinner break. Holding , Kurganov got his final chips in against and was eliminated after both a queen and a jack landed.

The 462 players created a total prize pool of €924,000 and 71 players will finish in the money. The min-cash is worth €3,400, but all eyes will be on the first place prize of €175,000. The complete list of payouts is as follows:

€1,100 EPT National Payouts

Place	Prize (in €)	Place	Prize (in €)
1	173,000	12-13	11,000
2	109,000	14-15	9,700
3	78,000	16-17	8,600
4	62,000	18-20	7,700
5	48,500	21-23	6,800
6	38,000	24-27	5,900
7	28,580	28-31	5,200
8	20,000	32-39	4,500
9	15,500	40-55	3,800
10-11	13,000	56-71	3,400

04-27-2018 18:54 UTC+2

PokerStars Tournament Director Explains Big Blind Ante Decisions

Yori Epskamp

"Antes please."

It's a familiar drumroll resonating in the ears of all tournament players worldwide. Posting an ante on top of the blinds has been around for decades and a staple at every major poker tournament around the world. However, the traditional system wasn't without its flaws, as recently pointed out in an article on PokerNews regarding the subject.

In short, antes slow the pace down, provide a logistical problem by having to keep smaller denomination chips in play and often force players into tedious changing processes just to be able to post the ante.

Despite the issues, the "everyone posts their ante" rule survived unscathed throughout the years, stemming from a purist background of everyone having a piece of proverbial skin in every hand. That is until recently, when the poker community decided to start moving away from the traditional ante, instead favoring the big blind or the button to pony up a round of antes at once.

A recent poll on Twitter showed the community is still very divided on the subject. With more than 1,000 responses to the question whether the big blind ante, button ante or traditional ante is preferred, 31 percent indicated a preference for the big blind, 30 percent said button ante was favored, while 39 percent stuck to their guns and rather had the old-fashioned way of posting.

Poker writer Marc Convey has a clear preference: the big blind ante.

"The big blind ante and the shot clock both speed up play, you also see players interact more," Convey said. "The big blind ante is better than the button ante for two reason. First, you have just two people needing to put chips in as opposed to three. And secondly, the big blind is always in play. Sometimes, you have a dead button; then what are you going to do?"

PokerStars introduces big blind ante at major events

After trying it out at earlier events and receiving positive feedback, the big blind ante format has been implemented at every no limit hold'em tournament at the 2018 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo©Casino EPT. To ask about this big change, we spoke with EPT Monte Carlo tournament director Toby Stone to inquire about the change and why the big blind ante is preferred over other ways of anteing.

"The big blind ante has been introduced at every NL hold'em event at the Monte Carlo EPT, as well as the Barcelona EPT and we're working on getting it in Prague as well," Stone said. "We've got two PokerStars festivals coming up in Marbella and Lille — for those events we've just decided to introduce it on the key events, the Main Event, High Roller and the Cup.

"The reason is that at those events, that level of player is a bit less professional than here, the big blind ante hasn't filtered down to that level of play yet, it needs a little bit of time to work its way down. We imagine we'll do it on all events in the future, but we're willing to change depending on the feedback we get."

EPT Tournament Director Toby Stone explains the change to the big blind ante

On why the change to the big blind ante format was chosen, Stone said:

"There are a few reasons we're doing this. One, it takes time for the dealer to collect the antes. Every single hand without collecting the ante saves a couple of seconds that saves you a minute or two per hour, giving players one, two, three more hands per hour. From an organizational perspective, it's also a little less wear on the dealer. They don't have to collect every ante every hand. They work long hours and it's a quite tiring job, and it a little less wear on them, so it's natural to do it for them as well.

Also, we do it for the players. They don't have to constantly think, 'put your ante, put your ante.' It should increase the enjoyment of those players as well by not having to constantly think about it. It's less work for them, less activity for them. They can have a conversation or check on their phone instead of having the dealer pounding on the table, 'hey, post your ante.' It makes for a more fluid game."

With the response to the Twitter poll being divided, it's clear the poker community hasn't settled on a consensus yet regarding the ante format. While the big blind ante seems to be the one spreading, some events have used the button ante.

Why did PokerStars go with the big blind?

"We settled on the big blind because you can only be the big blind once," he said. "You can never be the big blind twice. However, you can get the button twice. Now, if you're the button twice, we can't force you to pay the ante twice. That's not right.

"It's a little bit purer to the game, and that's really the key reason we have the big blind ante over the button ante."

Speaking of purity, another massive debate that raged was between whether players should post their ante or big blind first, with outspoken stances on both sides of the aisle. Posting the ante first has been the traditional way of posting since, well, ever, but at PokerStars events, this has been changed to a big-blind-before-ante format. Stone laughed heartedly when we inquired about this change.

"I tell you a true story," he said. "When I was first asked [about whether to post the ante or big blind first], I was like 'well, it has to be the ante.' It has to be the ante, because everybody pays their ante first, that's what it was before. I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to poker. And the argument against that, obviously, if [a player] is just all in for the ante, he can only win that money back, not any more money. From a purist level, that would actually be correct, if you take into consideration what we've been doing in the past.

"On an enjoyment level for the players, it's horrific that you can get down to such a low amount of only winning your money back. It's really not good. Then I kind of changed my view and decided: well, I'm not going to look at it and take the history why the ante is there and why we changed it."

Positive feedback from the players

PokerStars has received positive feedback about the change to the big blind ante from the players. Team PokerStars Pro Fatima Moreira de Melo played her first ever big blind ante tournament in last night's €1,100 EPT National Day 1c turbo and instantly fell in love with it.

"It's super chill!" Moreira de Melo laughed right away.

The change to the big blind ante format does create an interesting new dynamic, as players feel like they're posting two big blinds at once. She pointed out defending the big blind might become more common as a result.

"You're more likely to complete the big blind, because 'why not,' while it technically shouldn't matter as you should divide the antes across the orbit," she said. "Consequently, you have to be alert in the other hands as well and not think 'well, I've invested nothing,' you have to look what it's the pot and think longer term. I've not been trained in that yet as yesterday was my first time playing with a big blind ante."

Fatima Moreira de Melo finds the big blind ante 'super chill'

Monaco resident and high roller Govert Metaal chimed in as well, stating no preference regarding big blind or button ante. Metaal didn't notice a specific difference, as he said these days everyone completes the big blind all the time.

Talking about the big blind before ante change, Moreira de Melo said, "It's a good thing, otherwise it would be terrible when you're short."

"It really saves a lot, you play like 4 more hands per hour," Metaal added.

On the button versus big blind debate, Metaal said, "You putting the big blind in anyway, and it's easy to throw in another big."

"It's easy, a lot smoother," Moreira de Melo concurred. "Everything will be simpler and easier."

In conclusion, Metaal pointed out, "When you're a poker player, with the big blind ante as well at the shot clock, at the end of your career you will have played thousands of hands more because of it. That's what you're doing it for."

So there you have it, the reason why the big blind ante is in play at all no-Limit hold'em events at the 2018 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo©Casino EPT.

Tags: Fatima Moreira de Melo Govert Metaal Marc Convey Toby Stone

04-27-2018 17:11 UTC+2

€250,000 Awaits the €1,100 EPT National Winner

Yori Epskamp

With the prize pool officially locked in, the winner of the €1,100 EPT National will go home with the first place prize of €250,000 on Saturday, April 28. 224 out of 1,501 players came back today, each of them guaranteed at least €1,800 for already making it through the first day.

The full prize pool is divided as follows:

€1,100 EPT National Payouts

Place	Price (in €)	Place	Price (in €)
1	250,000	18-20	9,700
2	143,000	21-23	8,280
3	100,000	24-27	6,900
4	74,120	28-31	5,880
5	57,840	32-39	5,040
6	44,000	40-55	4,200
7	33,740	56-71	3,380
8	24,620	72-95	2.900
9	18,910	96-119	2,500
10-11	15,830	120-143	2,170
12-13	14,110	144-183	1,960
14-15	12,610	184-224	1,800
16-17	11,150

At the second break of the day, 94 palyers are still in contention with Dragos Trofimov wielding a massive stack of 1,700,000, making the Moldovan the clear chipleader in the room. Start-of-the-day chipleader Thomas Muehlocker still sits behind a commanding stack with 1,040,000, putting him in fifth place behind Antona Pierre (1,205,000), Guillaume Diaz (1,155,000) and Lorenzo Lavis (1,100,000).

Other big stacks in the room belong to Alexandre Le Vaillant (1,000,000), Vladimir Troyanovskiy (900,000), Federico Petruzzelli (885,000), Yichuan Ye (850,000) and Pascal Rabany (850,000). Notables still in contention include Jason Wheeler (671,000), Randy "nanonoko" Lew (580,000) and Gaelle Baumann (500,000).

Tags: Alexandre Le Vaillant Antona Pierre Dragos Trofimov Federico Petruzzelli Gaelle Baumann Guillaume Diaz Jason Wheeler Randy Lew Thomas Muehloecker Vladimir Troyanovskiy

04-27-2018 13:48 UTC+2

Super High Rollin' Toward €1.5 Million

mnuwwarah

The field is set and so is the prize pool in the €100K Super High Roller here at 2018 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo©Casino EPT.

The option to buy in to Day 2 was taken up by only two players — Orpen Kisacikoglu and Daniel Dvoress — which was likely a bit of a disappointment to the ones who bagged and hoped for a bigger prize pool. That pushed the total number of entries to 46, creating a prize pool of 4,462,920.

Here's how the payouts will be divvied up, with six players making the money:

Official Super High Roller Payouts

Place	Prize
1	€1,520,000
2	€1,046,000
3	€669,920
4	€513,000
5	€401,000
6	€313,000

There's already been a number of eliminations, starting with Steve O'Dwyer. Stephen Chidwick, Rainer Kempe, Daniel Dvoress and Igor Kurganov followed him out the door, reducing the field to 19 players. The remaining players should reach a final table and get into the money before the day ends.

We'll continue to keep tabs on this event, and you can keep even closer tabs by following along with the live coverage over at the PokerStars Blog.

04-27-2018 11:58 UTC+2

Yori Epskamp

Isaac Haxton, third time the charm in the €100,000 Super High Roller?

It's Day 4 of 11 at the 2018 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo©Casino EPT and cards will be in the air from noon again. Shortly before that happens, the first of two $30,000 Platinum Passes to the 2019 PokerStars Players Championship in the Bahama's up for grabs in the €1,100 EPT National will be handed out with a random flipout drawing among all 224 remaining players. It's free money and a unique gift to one lucky player, creating buzz right at the start.

Once the Platinum Pass has been handed out, the EPT National will continue with ten levels of 60 minutes each before chips are bagged for the night, which should bring us close to the final table.

At 12:30 p.m., the €100,000 Super High Roller plays its second of three days, with exactly half of the 44 entries still in contention. Late registration is open up until the start of Day 2 and play will continue until six players are left. Chipleader is Belarusian star Mikita Badziakouski, while Isaac Haxton sits in second. Haxton is on his third bullet in this event, after players successfully lobbied to have the single reentry format changed to unlimited reentries. Live updates of this event can be found over at the PokerStars blog.

Also at 12:30 p.m., the bigger brother of the EPT National, the €2,200 EPT National High Roller will kick off its first of two days. No less than 17 levels of 40 minutes will be played out today and a single reentry is allowed to those that run out of chips on their first attempt. The ever-popular €330 EPT Cup will have its second starting day at 8 p.m. tonight and allows for a single reentry per flight. Like the €1,100 National, each EPT Cup flight will play down until the money has been reached.

PokerNews will be on the floor the entire day to bring you coverage, stories and all the excitement from the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo©Casino EPT in the gorgeous principality of Monaco.