EPT Berlin – the first ever European Poker Tour event to be held in Berlin – is well and truly underway. The event has been moved from its original location in Dortmund, to the Grand Hyatt Hotel, in the capital.
The first day of the €5,000 + €300 buy-in Main Event was broken down into two parts, the first of which was held on Tuesday, attracting 388 players. Big names included Victoria Coren, Katja Thater, Tom McEvoy, Juha Helppi and Barny Boatman.
Day 1a was brought to a close with Israel’s Kfir Yamin sitting on the chip lead, with 213,500. His nearest rival was a good distance back – the 163,000 stack belonging to Rachid Ben Cherif.
Day 1b surpassed all expectations as a mammoth 557 players turned up, taking the total number of participants to 945, making this the largest poker tournament ever to be held in Germany. The total prize pool stands at €4,725,000, with €1 million for the eventual EPT Berlin champion.
Big names to show up on day 1b included John Kabbaj, Jan Heitmann, Sandra Naujoks, Johnny Lodden and David Paredes, fresh from his fifth place finish at the NAPT event last week. Also in attendance, wearing a ridiculous negligee, was Nicolas Levi who had previously lost a prop-bet with Alexia Portal at the Deauville EPT event, accounting for the atrocious attire.
288 players remained at the close of play, along with 196 from the first flight and Tu Tuan To headed day 1b’s chip count, with 212,600 – just 900 short of the day 1a chip leader Kfir Yamin.
Day two saw an incredible 360 of the 484 remaining players bust out, playing well into the pay-out places which began at 144th place. Despite the brutal rate at which players dropped out, there was still room for some extremely dubious stalling tactics close to the bubble, in which one table made the most straightforward of hands last over ten minutes, antics which required a floor person to stand and keep an eye on the table.
Stefan Huber (1,087,500) will begin the third day’s play as chip leader, the only player to finish day two with over a million in chips. Johannes Strassmann (794,500) is next, with fellow Team PokerStars Pros Jude Ainsworth (720,500), William Thorson (496,000), Julian Thew (350,000) and Marcel Luske (270,000) all in the top twelve at the chip counts.
The action begins at Midday CET on Friday and play will continue until the final 24 players.
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