As the World Poker Tour begins its final stop in Las Vegas, so does the European Poker Tour in Prague. The €5,300 EPT Main Event began on Monday with the first of two starting flights. There were 402 entries on Day 1A at the Hilton Prague, with Javier Gomez Zapatero emerging as the chip leader of the remaining 124, bagging 341,000 chips at the end of the night.
Zapatero, from Spain, has over $2.1 million in live tournament earnings, according to his profile on TheHendonMob.com. His largest cash came in 2017, when he won $561,349 for a first place finish in a $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em event at the Deepstack Extravaganza III in Las Vegas.
Day 1 has a bit of an interesting structure in that the tournament is a re-entry event, but unlike the WPT World Championship, which allows one re-entry per starting flight, EPT Prague is only permitting one re-entry in both starting days combined. In other words, players can only have a maximum of two entries – their original and one re-entry – across both starting days. For those who do not use both entries by the end of the day today, registration is open until the start of Day 2.
Each starting day consists of ten 60-minute levels. At the start of Day 3, a shot clock will be in effect, though every player will have five 30-second time bank cards in case they need a little more time to think.
Management has reserved some right to reduce the amount of time per level once there are only five players remaining in the tournament; after Day 1, levels will be 90 minutes long. If a deal is made at any point, the level durations will be slashed in half.
The European Poker Tour has actually said that this tournament will be timed slightly differently than others in order to get it done before the World Cup final. The championship match of the world’s most prestigious soccer (football) tournament is scheduled for December 18 at 4:00pm Prague time. The EPT Prague final table begins that same day at 10:30am. Hence, the desire to hurry along the end of the tournament if at all possible.
As of this writing, it appears that the last hope for a European entry in the World Cup final is France, which plays against Morocco in the semifinal on Wednesday. Argentina is currently up 3-0 on Croatia with 20 minutes remaining in the other semifinal match.
2022 EPT Prague – Day 1A Chip Leaders
- Javier Gomez Zapatero – 341,000
- Ramon Colillas – 312,000
- Sam Greenwood – 293,000
- Nicola Grieco – 289,500
- Julien Sitbon – 232,000
- Justin Steinbrenner – 220,000
- Jun Obara – 214,000
- Dawid Smolka – 209,500
- Conor Beresford – 189,500
- Simon Lofberg – 188,500
