Feature Coverage
Day 4 Started
2018 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo©Casino EPT
Feature Coverage
Day: 4
Coverage of the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo©Casino EPT Continues at Noon
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.
Super High Rollin' Toward €1.5 Million
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.
Photos: First Monte Carlo Platinum Pass
Photos: €100K Super High Roller
Photos by Neil Stoddart.
Miguel Romero Wins Platinum Pass in Absentee Fashion
It seems the key to scoring a Platinum Pass in the random live giveaways is not being physically present at all and being dealt a raggedy hand.
The Passes provide winners with a $25,000 seat to the PokerStars Players No-Limit Hold'em Championship plus travel and accommodation to The Bahamas for the January 2019 event, valued at $30,000 total. PokerStars awarded the first one of the 2018 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo©Casino EPT stop, and the way it went down recalled one of the first passes awarded, at PokerStars Caribbean Adventure a few months ago.
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.
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.
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.
€1,100 EPT National Day 2 Photos
Photos by René Velli / PokerStars.
€250,000 Awaits the €1,100 EPT National Winner
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).
Final Table in the €100K
The €100K Super High Roller has reached a final table of nine, although there remains work to be done until the event is in the money with six places set to be paid. Here's the way the table is set up going into the final nine:
| Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jan Schwippert | Germany | 1,300,000 |
| 2 | Ali Reza Fatehi | Iran | 995,000 |
| 3 | Ole Schemion | Germany | 1,535,000 |
| 4 | Christoph Vogelsang | Germany | 2,500,000 |
| 5 | Isaac Haxton | United States | 580,000 |
| 6 | Nick Petrangelo | United States | 272,000 |
| 7 | Mikita Badziakouski | Belarus | 1,763,000 |
| 8 | Sam Greenwood | Canada | 1,905,000 |
| 9 | Justin Bonomo | United States | 837,000 |
When three more players go bust, they're scheduled to bag up for the night for the streamed final table tomorrow.
PokerStars Tournament Director Explains Big Blind Ante Decisions
"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."
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."
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.