The lid goes on another day on the European Poker Tour, a full day with the typically weightier Day 1B field packing the tournament room of Casino San Remo.

The faces appearing the crowds made it clear just how popular an event like this really is. In addition to EPT regulars like Dario Minieri, Johnny Lodden and Fatima Moreira de Melo those ending an autumnal foray to Cannes, France, hopped into taxis and sped along the A10 highway to give the Italian side of the border a whirl. They included Patrick Antonius, the Mizrachi brothers and Elio Fox.

Fatima Moreira de Melo

Patrik Antonius

There were also the North American contingent, among them Vanessa Selbst, Jonathan Duhamel, Eugene Katchalov and Melanie Weisner. In terms of quality, today was bursting at the seams and as we end tonight it is another American, Taylor Paur who leads the field.

Chip leader Taylor Paur

After eight levels and a buffet Paur bags up 188,200 tonight, the leader on the day and overall, topping the count penciled in by Day 1A leader Gianluca Trebbi (159,600). His lead is slight though, with Brandon Cantu in second, bagging up 180,000.

The tournament room in San Remo

The chase pack is not short of a track record of pursuing such early leaders. Vanessa Selbst (164,200), Anton Wigg (152,800), Liv Boeree (106,500) and Johnny Lodden (113,800) are all within a few emotive hand gestures of the lead and return tomorrow well placed for a run on the lead. That group also includes plenty of hand gestures from Nicolas Grieco, who held the lead almost to the end. He returns tomorrow with 161,800.

Vanessa Selbst

Liv Boeree

That, ladies and gentleman, is your neatly packaged Day 1B, one which didn’t provide us with a winner, although they’re in there somewhere, but meant it was goodbye for several big names.

Jude Ainsworth, Victoria Coren and Ana Marquez were among the Team PokerStars Pros departing, along with Antonius, Michael Mizrachi, and Jake Cody. Roberto Romanello was also eliminated from the main event today.

Team PokerStars Pro Jude Ainsworth

That still leaves plenty. The chip counts of Katchalov, Theo Jorgensen, Sandra Naujoks, Selbst, Boeree and others are all available on the official chip count page (top right of this page), which will be made so just as soon as officials make them so. So to speak.

Sandra Naujoks

In the meantime check out all the action from today at the links below:

Level 1 and 2 updates
Level 3 and 4 updates
Level 5 and 6 updates
Level 7 and 8 updates

That’s all from San Remo tonight. Play continues with a united field for Day 2 on Sunday, with the start time again set for 2pm.

A total of 478 players started today (837 in total), reduced to around 275 today, combining tomorrow to leave just less than 500 still in the running for the money which was today signed off. First prize on Thursday will pay €800,000 to the winner, with the top 128 players paid for their efforts.

Santuario Madonna della Costa in San Remo

Find out who will be taking a step closer to that when coverage resumes tomorrow.

Until then it’s goodnight from San Remo.

All photography (c) Neil Stoddart.

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