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).
Set to begin at noon, the €1K EPT National had 224 players scheduled to take their seats and start playing, but in typical poker tournament restart fashion, not everyone made it in on time. Still, each player had his or her equity in the Platinum Pass flipout locked in as the tournament director instructed the dealers to pitch everyone a hand. Each table's champion would meet up for the second round.
"This is the most important hand of the day," a player said excitedly, whipping out his phone and recording as the dealer at his table determined who would get a sweat.
By the time the dust settled a few minutes later and the winners gathered in selected tables at the edge of the room, less than three full tables of players remained. One by one, each table played out a second flip and the finalists emerged: Terence Reardon of the U.S.A., Federico Petruzzelli of Italy and... an empty seat.
A player who had yet to show up had won his first two flipouts, and the tournament director announced one Miguel Romero as the third finalist.
A crowd gathered and the dealer fired off the final hands face down. Each player flipped over one card, or in Romero's case, had it flipped for him. Petruzzelli had an eight and Reardon a seven. Absentee Romero had a four. The board came out queen-five-two-nine-four. Only Romero had paired, and he had it locked in without even needing his second card as his opponents each turned over threes when instructed to peel their second hole cards. For historical records' sake, Romero had jack-four offsuit.
The \"final table\"
Buzz died as there was nobody there to celebrate, with those present chuckling over the nice surprise Romero had coming whenever he made his entrance. It was reminiscent of PCA, when Thai Ha showed up late and was informed his empty seat had binked a Platinum Pass courtesy of eight-deuce offsuit that was good for trip eights.
About 10 minutes later, Romero bore a grin in front of a camera and held up the Pass. Turned out, it was his birthday and he had been gifted quite the present. He didn't ascribe his tardiness to a night celebrating. Quite the contrary, he had a rather mundane reason for showing up late, one that anyone who has made the trip to Monaco will nod knowingly at: he couldn't find a taxi.
Furthermore, he'd been delayed again just walking into the room. Upon trying to enter, he'd been told to wait by security as the TV crew was filming the giveaway. He finally made it in and got enfolded in a bear hug from a friend who relayed the exciting news.
PokerStars Live personnel spoke with Romero through a translator on first break of the €1K, which Romero eked into with a short stack.
Miguel Romero gets a hug from his buddy.
The Chilean merchant told them he's a casual player enjoying his first poker trip to Europe. He's been playing for about five years, starting on PokerStars after some prodding from a friend.
"This is the best gift I could receive," he said. "When my friend Gustavo told me I had won a package to go to The Bahamas valued at $30,000, I could not believe it. I want to thank PokerStars for the opportunity and how they reward the players."
He's away from his wife for the first time on his birthday, and she's going to get some great news as he plans to take her to The Bahamas in January.
As for how he's going to compete with the high roller crushers who will be populating the tables at the PSPC, Romero said he'd already planning to reach out to some fellow Chileans who possess more poker chops.
It's certainly a 34th birthday to remember for Romero, and with the way these Platinum Pass flipouts have gone so far, dealers might be pitching to a bunch of empty seats next time as superstitious poker players try to be the next to bink in absentee fashion.
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.
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.
