EPT Berlin has been a huge stop for the European Poker Tour with 945 entries playing the inaugural tournament in 2010.
Today just 243 registered to play, falling far short of expectations judging by the auxiliary tournament room set up at the Spielbank Casino just steps from the main tournament room.
Tomorrow's field is estimated to be as big as 700 which means we'll be seeing plenty more big name poker pros.
Here are the top ten chip counts after Day 1A:
Jens Weigel (Germany) - 199,600 Ariel Celestino (Brazil) - 153,300 Anton Wigg (Sweden) - 152,200 Azmi Korkmaz (Germany) - 143,300 Stephane Albertini (France) - 142,500 David Yan (New Zealand) - 139,000 Iliodoros Kamatakis (Greece) - 138,800 Bozidar Miljkovic (Germany) - 136,600Wigg, Chartier, Molson Headline Top 25
After ten hours of poker 2011 EPT Snowfest winner Vladamir Geshkenbein accumulated 201,600, and was the only player to break the 200k mark.
That number barely bested Germany’s own Jens Weigel by just 2,000.
Anton Wigg, another former EPT winner, is heading into Day 2 fourth in chips. The EPT Copenhagen winner bagged 152,200 by day’s end,
Finishing 19th in chips with 107,500 was Canadian Sam Chartier.
Chartier made a big call to double his stack early, picking off a big river all-in bluff, and put himself over 100k when he flopped a set and eliminated Gerard Van Leest.
Another Canadian, high-stakes player Will Molson, finished with 94,900.
Also making it through was Pierre Neuville, who recently penned a seven-part poker strategy series on how to qualify for the EPT.
Torelli, Seiver, Boatman Among Busted
Day 1A said goodbye to 134 players, among them a few names we’d have liked to see deeper in this event.
American Alec Torelli has been on a European your of his own, playing the recent iSeries Live event in Dublin and now this EPT in Berlin.
Unfortunately for Torelli he four-bet shoved pocket eights for 18k at 25/500 and ran into pocket jacks.
Also busting was Torelli’s fellow American Scott Seiver, who dispatched UK old-schooler Barny Boatman before going broke himself.
Boatman got cute in a big pot, bluffing all-in on the river with ace-high, and Seiver snapped him off with the third-nut flush.
Joining Seiver and Boatman on the rail was Dermot Blain, Manuel Bevand, Torston Brinkmann, Davin Georgi, David Peters, Ignat “0human0” Liviu, Ludovic Lacay and Tristan Wade.
Tomorrow will see the second Day 1 heat play out. Check our Poker News Section for the update.
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