After the lights were dimmed and a welcome video shown to the players in the room, EPT President Edgar Stuchly took to the mic.
"First and foremost I would like to thank you all for joining and supporting the EPT," Stuchly said in a deep timber. "Dealers please, shuffle up and deal."
A nice round of applause followed, the dealers promptly washed the deck, and cards are officially in the air here in the EPT Malta Main Event.
The European Poker Tour's first-ever stop to the island nation of Malta has proven a tremendous success, and the Main Event hasn't even begun! That's because two days ago Poland's Dzmitry Urbanovich topped a field of 88 entries to win the €25,500 High Roller €572,300, and then yesterday the long-awaited Global Poker Masters (GPM) kicked off their Playoff round, which saw the elimination of Team UK from the competition.
That doesn't even take into account the numerous side events taking place as part of the EPT Malta Poker Festival, which is hosting the largest number of tournaments ever at a PokerStars live event. There are also be up to 35 EPT-run cash game tables operating 24 hours a day.
The GPM will continue today at the Hilton Hotel, but in the main ballroom the EPT Malta will come to a head with the cornerstone €5,300 buy-in Main Event. Over the next few days some of the game's best will take their shot in this tournament including a long list of Team PokerStars Pros. For instance, World Series of Poker Player of the Year George Danzer, EPT Sanremo champ Liv Boeree, 2010 world champion Jonathan Duhamel, and the world’s top female player Vanessa Selbst are all here, as is Team PokerStars SportStar Fatima Moreira de Melo and PokerStars-sponsored PCA 2014 champion Dominik Panka. Team Online will be represented by Marc-Andre Ladouceur, Ike Haxton and Vito Barone.
Not all of those players will play today (some are still alive in the GPM), but we expect plenty of notables to test their mettle here on Day 1a.
Players will start with 30,000 in chips, and the plan for the day is to play eight 75-minute levels, meaning play should end tonight around 11:45 p.m. Click here to see the entire Main Event structure. Cards will be in the air at Noon local time, which is just under an hour from now. Stay tuned as the PokerNews Live Reporting Team brings you all the latest and greatest from the EPT Malta Main Event.
The PokerNews MyStack App is available for players here in the EPT Malta Main Event, allowing players to directly update their chip count on the PokerNews Live Reporting page for their friends and family to see.
You can download the app absolutely free for iPhone or Android now to get started. Then, create a new PokerNews account or update your current one to start updating your status immediately. Your followers can see all the live action that you're involved in.
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