While they were able to pull in 254 players for the action of Day 1A, the “powers that be” for the European Poker Tour had to be a bit concerned about the player numbers for their stop at the Hilton Prague Hotel in the Czech Republic. As it turned out, there wasn’t any reason for the “suits” to be worried as a massive player turnout for Day 1B brought reminiscences of last year’s massive gathering.
From the start of the day, it was obvious that Friday’s numbers were going to be big. When the cards first went into the air, there were 430 players on the tables and that number would quickly rocket past the 500 mark. Surprisingly, every table had a notable name on it, with such players as Dylan Linde, Dermot Blain, Luca Pagano, Mickey Petersen, Jude Ainsworth, Martins Adeniya, 2014 World Series of Poker Player of the Year George Danzer, David Vamplew, recent Poker Hall of Fame inductee John Juanda and Eugene Katchalov (among others) hearing the “shuffle up and deal” call. As the day rolled along, such players as Simon Deadman, Alex Bilokur, Balasz Botand and defending champion Stephen Graner took advantage of the late registration and came late to the game.
About three hours into the day’s action, the sidelines began to fill up with players you wouldn’t expect to be in that situation. 2015 WSOP Championship Event “November Niner” Zvi Stern, Sam Grafton, Ami Barer, Robin Ylitalo, Andy Black and the defending champion Graner would all go down. It seems that Graner, for the most part, was unable to get anything going in the 2015 version of this tournament, falling to Mustafa Biz when Graner got his final chips in pre-flop with K♣ Q♣ and hit on the 8-Q-6 flop. The problem was it wasn’t enough to catch Biz’s pocket Aces and, instead of holding the trophy once again, Graner was out before the dinner break on Day 1B.
Samuel Chartier was perhaps the surprise of the day’s action as no one knows how he got to the stack that he will carry to Day 2. The tough Canadian pro quietly worked his way through the backwaters of the Hilton Prague tournament arena, building up a chip stack of 165,000 late in the evening’s action. Things would get even better for Chartier before the end of the night as, once again without much fanfare, he would be the only player to emerge from the two Day Ones with more than 200K in chips besides their name.
1. Samuel Chartier, 211,500
2. Luca Amoruso, 168,800
3. Gleb Tremzin, 168,700
4. Ivan Zhechev, 159,900
5. Gerald Karlic, 158,500
6. Mustafa Biz, 150,200
7. Roberto Romanello, 147,800
8. Bruno Lopes, 143,700
9. John Leathart, 142,600
Combined with the field from Day 1A, the unofficial leaderboard looks like this:
1. Samuel Chartier, 211,500
2. Anton Astapau, 190,600*
3. Luca Amoruso, 168,800
4. Gleb Tremzin, 168,700
5. Ivan Zhechev, 159,900
6. Gerald Karlic, 158,500
7. Ghattas Kortas, 151,200*
8. Adrian Mateos, 150,200*
8. Mustafa Biz, 150,200
10. Roberto Romanello, 147,800
(* – played Day 1A)
The 783 players that flooded the Hilton Prague on Friday – added to the now miniscule looking 254 that stepped to the felt on Thursday’s Day 1A – brought the entire field count up to 1037 players (there are no re-entries on the EPT, these were individual players). That challenges last year’s numbers of 1107 and it is possible that the field may still eclipse that mark as late registration is open for the tournament until the first hand is dealt on Day 2 Saturday. Regardless of whether anyone joins in after this point, the first place prize for the eventual champion should earn a payday of around €900,000 (Graner earned €969,000 for his victory in 2014).
Roughly 600 players will return on Saturday as the field comes together for the first time at the 2015 EPT Prague. Saturday’s action will resume at noon local time (6AM Eastern Time) as the battle continues until the final champion for 2015 is crowned on the EPT stage on Wednesday.
