EPT London Kicks Off Today

The European Poker Tour London started today at the Victoria Casino, with a £1,000,000 first prize and the debut of high-roller event “PokerStars.com EPT London £1m Showdown.”

The field was originally meant to cap at 500 players, but more tables were added to accommodate the large demand, and 290 players will start each of the Day 1s. The field includes PokerStars Pros Daniel Negreanu, Isabelle Mercier, Vanessa Rousso, Alex Kravchenko, Victor Ramdin, Shaun Deeb, Chad Brown and Vicky Coren. Other famous players at the Victoria Casino are Patrik Antonius, Gavin Griffin, Annette Obrestad, Kathy Liebert, Mark Teltscher, Jeff Lisandro and Chris Ferguson.

The buy-in for the EPT London main event is £5,200+£200, for a respectable prize pool of £2,080,000. This is apparently not enough for PokerStars, who for the first time have added £250,000 to the prize pool to guarantee a £1,000,000 first prize – over $2,000,000 – which probably explains the 100-strong waiting list for any seat that may be going spare at the Victoria Casino.

Day 1B will be played tomorrow, and as the field whittles down on Friday and Saturday we will be able to report on the final table and eventual winner after the final day on October 5th. The final table will be filmed for broadcast.

But that is not all – after the EPT Main Event is over and the £1,000,000 prize has found a home, PokerStars will debut the first European Poker Tour high roller event, the “PokerStars.com EPT London £1m Showdown.” The £1 million Showdown has a hefty buy-in of £20,000 + £300, with the £1 million prize pool guaranteed by PokerStars. This generous guarantee has attracted PokerStars Pros such as Alex Kravchenko, Barry Greenstein and Daniel Negreanu.

Last season’s EPT London saw almost 400 players vying for the £611,000 first prize, which was taken by PokerStars qualifier Joseph Mouawad after battling German pro Florian Langmann heads up.

The EPT continues on its way in November in Poland, then on to the Czech Republic and all the way into the Grand Finale in Monte Carlo in May 2009. The schedule is below.