The opening moments of Day 1BThe start of a poker tournament is, we think, a lot like that start of any sports season. Until a ball is kicked/thrown/pitched every fan of their team is usually full of beans, hopeful that this coming season is their season. That optimism often doesn’t last too long.

In a poker tournament the fans are the players themselves. Their outlet for this optimism? Twitter of course. A cursory scan of that medium reveals all manner of ‘let’s do this,’ ‘let’s go’ and ‘Day 1B about to start, can’t wait’.

Starting up in 15 #EPTPrague #thedream

— Jaime Staples (@jaimestaples) December 11, 2015

#EPTPrague main event today!!!! last major tournament of the year

— Jake Cody (@JakeCody) December 11, 2015

Time for the big one:) Let’s do this! #EPTPrague pic.twitter.com/HLPMstzUkO

— Marc Convey (@The_Conv) December 11, 2015

In time, and it won’t take long, the tweets will become less joyful and more painful as stories of big hands lost and dashed dreams are splintered amongst the ‘good beats’. It was the same yesterday and today they’ll be more of them, lots more.

Before Thomas Lamatsch had said the words ‘shuffle up and deal’ there were over 400 players in their seats and in the opening 10 minutes that number grew to 434. The Day 1B field will soon be double that of Day 1A. EPT8 Campione winner Jannick Wrang was in his seat for the start of play but couldn’t be dealt in as there was only one other player at his table. EPT rules state that three players must be present at a table before play can start.

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John Juanda, who finished eighth in yesterday’s Super High Roller, arrived a minute late and picked up his seat assignment. He wandered over to an area containing eight tables to look for his table and seat. This was the Juanda lottery then, but one no table wanted to win. The recent Poker Hall of Fame inductee stopped at table 15, they’d won – or rather lost – the lottery. The Indonesian recognised the player to his right (Goran Mandic) and they exchanged pleasantries as Juanda sat down. The two both went deep in the EPT9 Grand Final with Juanda finishing 11th and Mandic busting 15th.

Mandic and Juanda meet againWhilst Wrang was still waiting to be dealt in plenty of others were enjoying their first orbit. Luca Pagano and Dermot Blain are sat side by side, with the Italian having position. They were later joined by Andy Black, should be fun times at that table then.

Elsewhere Team PokerStars Pro George Danzer is sat next to the newest Team Pro, Chen-An Lin and Friend of PokerStars Jaime Staples is going to get a warm ‘welcome to Prague’ from Sam Grafton. The Englishman now lives in Prague so will be able to suggest some sights for Staples to see.

Welcome to the EPT Chen-AnThe Red Spade’s numbers are further bolstered today by Vanessa Selbst, Matthias De Meulder, Eugene Katchalov, Marcin Horecki, Chris Moneymaker and Johnny Lodden. There are plenty of EPT champions going for the double, including: David Vamplew, Julian Track, Robin Ylitalo and Niall Farrell.

As with yesterday they’ll be eight levels today and you can follow all the Main Event action on this page.

The high roller today is a Single Day €25,000 event, you can follow that on the dedicated Single Day High Roller page.

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