Thursday, 28th March 2024 12:47
Home / Uncategorized / EPT London: On the shoulders of giants

The old tenet that day 1b hosts a stronger field then day 1a seems to be true here in London. Whether it’s to cut down a hotel bill or personal preference, look in any direction and there’s a familiar face with an EPT story or two in their back pocket. In fact, you could probably walk on the heads of a tournament winner from one side of the room to the other.

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Keeping his back straight — Ivan Demidov

You might want to step up onto the shoulders of Ivan Demidov to start. You can use the drinks table for a leg up. Now step over to another Russian, Vitaly Lunkin, winner of two WSOP bracelets and a Russian Poker Tour event. It’s two along to Team PokerStars Pro William Thorson, three EPT final tables, and then a short step to Michael Martin, winner of EPT London 12 months ago. From here hitch your breeches for a short step to Pascal Perrault, winner in Vienna back in season one.

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Now you have options: The northerly route through serial qualifier Danny Ryan and ElkY? Or west, past World Cup of Poker winner Malthe Strothmann? Let’s go with Strothmann. Use his table for a run up to Eric Liu, a finalist here last year, then sharp right to tour regulars Sebastian/ Daniel one of the pocket Zink twins, to EPT3 Baden winner Julian Thew and EPT4 San Remo runner-up Antony Lellouche. You’re half way now.

From Jason Mercier who won the High Roller event here last year, not to mention the first San Remo crown ahead of Lellouche, it’s a short step to Ram Vaswani, a EPT winner and runner-up with four final tables, left again to double final- tabler Johannes Strassmann. Onto the next table where EPT Copenhagen winner Noah Boeken sits then, using him and Leo Fernandez (fifth in yesterday’s High Roller final) to hop and skip, jump over to serial winner Chad Brown. Pirouette to WPT winner and EPT runner-up Christer Johansson and you’re at the bar, where a dozen or so of today’s early eliminations are waiting.

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Chad Brown at the finish line

So there you go: highlights of half of today’s quality field presented in a totally dubious and irrelevant way.

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