Thursday, 28th March 2024 11:15
Home / Uncategorized / EPT London: Day 1b: The same but different
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My colleague Brad Willis arrived at the press box morning and said: “When you dream of Thomas Kremser, you know you’re working too much.” In his defence, it’s been a long time since Willis trod the hallowed turf of the European Poker Tour, and yesterday’s day 1a of the £5,000 Main Event in London was a long one. We saw an awful lot of Kremser through nine levels of play, during which time we sliced the field from 305 to 129. But there’s news for the work-shy Willis: today there will be even more.

This is day 1b, and it will be the same as day 1a, only different. If every poker tournament ever played is anything to go by, today’s field will be bigger and the action more frantic. We’re looking at approximately 500 players, and the probable confirmation that this is the largest EPT to be held in this country, creating the largest prize pool. At some point this afternoon we’ll have full details of the payout structure, and the knowledge of the star prize they will all be seeking.

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And it’s not just quantity, but quality too in today’s field. From Team PokerStars Pro, we’ll be seeing Dario Minieri, Ivan Demidov, Leo Fernandez, William Thorson, Chad Brown, Humberto Brenes, Vanessa Rousso, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem, Alexandre Gomes, Andre Akkari, Jason Mercier, Dennis Phillips, Lex Veldhuis, Juan Maceiras, Johannes Strassmann, JC Alvarado, Veronica Dabul, Gualtar Salles and Boris Becker.

From further afield, there will be Antoine Saout, Dave Ulliot, Praz Bansi, Sorel Mizzi, Jonas Molander, Huck Seed, Ross Boatman, Annette Obrestad, Jeff Lisandro, Neil Channing, Christian Harder, Adolfo Vaeza, James Akenhead, Christer Johansson, Benny Spindler, Malte Strothmann, Danny Ryan, Michael Martin, Peter Hedlund, Michael Tureniec, Ram Vaswani, Liya Gerasimova, Salvatore Bonavena, Vitaly Lunkin, Karl Mahrenholz, Surinder Sunar, Pascal Perrault, Joe Ebanks, Jonathan Aguiar, Liz Lieu, John Shipley, Julian Thew and many others. This will be a busy, busy day.

While everyone takes their seats, there’s just time enough to mention that the aforementioned Hachem has already had a pretty good result in this room. Late last night, he was crowned champion of the eight-game side event and he’ll be collecting his trophy at a ceremony scheduled for the first break today.

Stay with us for that, and plenty more as we get thick into the action.

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