2018 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo©Casino EPT

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

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.

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.

Tags: Ali Reza FatehiChristoph Vogelsang

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

Tags: Conor BeresfordDario SammartinoJack SalterJan BendikLeo MargetsMamouni SmainMatous HoužvicekNacho BarberoRainer Kempe

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

Tags: Federico PetruzzelliGaelle BaumannGeorgios VrakasMichal MrakesRandy Lew