You know you’re at an EPT when on your way to work you can see ships passing on the horizon. The Bahamas, San Remo and Monte Carlo have this in common, Barcelona too, and now you can ink in Deauville to that list, where you don’t even need to step outside. Just crane your neck around one of the crystal chandeliers in the Grand Ballroom and there it is – the beach and beyond it the sea.
Deauville doesn’t have the temperature to match Paradise Island in January or the Riviera in the spring, but you can forgive a town like this for not having quite the same temperate welcome. Instead, swap that for up market shopping, thoroughbred race horses galloping a few streets away, and a casino venue that bottles opulence and serves it for any occasion.
So to mark the EPT’s return we’ve gathering more than 300 of the world’s finest poker players, armed with ego, bank notes and a savage sense of extravagance, to salute this, the most opulent venue outside the Monte Carlo city limits. They’ll be split in the traditional way over two days, playing hour levels with a starting stack of 10,000, until just eight of them remain, meeting at the final table on Saturday.
Players have already begun entering the Grand Ballroom, to an indistinguishable ballad played over the loudspeaker, which means the start cannot be too far away. On second look the ship on the horizon isn’t moving. But this is a perfect place to weigh anchor for a week. We plan to do the same.
Here’s how it looks in moving pictures:
Watch EPT Deauville S5: Introduction into Day 1a on PokerStars.tv
