Nicola Grieco Sits Atop Day 1a of the EPT Monte Carlo Main Event

After 10 levels of play on Day 1a, Italy’s Nicola Grieco leads a returning field of 104 into Day 2 of the €5,300 EPT Main Event at the 2023 PokerStars European Poker Tour presented by Monte-Carlo Casino®️.

The first of two opening flights drew 363 entries and generated a prize pool of €2,395,900 ($2,640,399). Day 1b will kick off Monday at 12 p.m. local time, and the surviving players from both flights will meet on Tuesday at noon to fight for their spot on Day 3.

Grieco bagged up 325,000 to take the chip lead after picking up steam in the later levels, while David Vinayagamoorthy finished in second with 272,000 and Markkos Ladev closed out the day in third with 257,500. Josef Schusteritsch and Vicente Delgado rounded out the top five with 250,000 and 244,500, respectively.

2023 EPT Monte Carlo Main Event Top Ten Day 1a Chip Counts

Rank	Name	Country	Chips	Day 2 Big Blinds
1	Nicola Grieco	Italy	325,000	217
2	David Vinayagamoorthy	Norway	272,000	181
3	Markkos Ladev	Estonia	257,500	172
4	Josef Schusteritsch	Austria	250,000	167
5	Vicente Delgado	Spain	244,500	163
6	Sam Greenwood	Canada	232,500	155
7	Arunas Sapitavicius	Lithuania	228,500	152
8	Maduka Meragal	Canada	227,000	151
9	Yanfeng Wang	Hong Kong	222,500	148
10	Jacob Amsellem	Israel	203,000	135

Day 1a Action

Grieco returns as the chip leader with an opportunity to improve on a big run to 17th in last year’s EPT Monte Carlo Main Event. He also finished in the money at the EPT Main Events in Barcelona and Prague later that year. Grieco’s best career-finish came in the 2019 version of this event, when he made a deep run to fifth place for €206,590 ($232,120).

Several notables turned out for the opening flight of the Main Event, and among those returning for Day 2 with a big stack is Maria Ho. Ho finished up just under 150,000 on just one entry. She already has two cashes on the year at PokerStars events—the first coming with a run to 20th in the BSOP Main Event in the Bahamas and the second just days later with a 98th place finish in the PCA Main Event. Ho returns with an opportunity to cross the $4.5 million mark in lifetime earnings, according to The Hendon Mob.

Sam Greenwood bagged a top ten stack of 232,500 after holding the chip lead for the better part of the early levels. Greenwood has six cashes in PokerStars events in 2023, including a run to second in the €5,200 Mystery Bounty earlier in the Monte Carlo Series. He also picked up a seventh place finish in the €5,150 6-Handed event in Paris and he had a run to second place in the €25,000 event earlier in that series. However, his biggest score of 2023 came with a win in the $250,000 Super High Roller at the PCA for a career-high of $3,276,760.

Other players bagging for Day 2 include Vanessa Kade, Davidi Kitai, Stephen Chidwick, Harry Lodge, Julien Martini, Dominik Panka, and PokerStars Ambassador Ramon Colillas.

Alexandra Botez was among those that failed to qualify for Day 2. She jumped ahead early but fell in Level 5 where she caught the worst of two straights against Antonio Buonanno. Other players that failed to qualify for Day 2 include Maria Konnikova, Erik Seidel, Justin Bonomo, Joao Vieira, and PokerStars Ambassadors Alejandro Lococo, Parker Talbot, and Sam Grafton.