Poker Stars EPT Grand Final Day 1A RecapStephan Kjerstad Ends as Chip Leader, European and Internet Player Dominate Field |
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Beautiful scenery, beautiful women, and a beautiful game of poker — it can only mean that it’s time for the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Grand Final in Monte Carlo. The players were greeted in the tournament room like rock stars. Blaring rock music and lights accompanied a short video of EPT poker action from previous events. It all culminated in a shot of last year’s Grand Final winner, Gavin Griffin, holding up his Grand Final glass trophy as this year’s trophy was lit up by a spotlight at center stage.
This year’s Grand Final epitomized the current trends in poker, as the European players and Internet pros bolstered the field, making it likely to be the biggest EPT event of all time. The 392 entrants in today’s field, the first of two day ones for this year’s event, meant that this event will blow the first-ever Grand Final’s 221 total entrants out of the water. Last year’s Grand Final, the third iteration of the tournament, was truly a coming out party for the event. It coincided with the explosive growth of poker in Europe, and more than 700 entrants bought into the event.
Along with the Euro and Internet players, tournament sponsor PokerStars.com’s team of pros was out in full force. The Team PokerStars Pro members in the field today included Greg Raymer, Katja Thater, Barry Greenstein, Isabelle Mercier, Humberto Brenes, Noah Boeken, Andre Akkari, Raymond Rahme, and Tuan Lam. More than half of the team would end up walking out of the tournament room empty-handed before the day was through, as Akkari, Lam, Thater, Raymer, and Mercier all hit the rail.
Some other big-name players fought hard to build stacks in the highly-influential tournament, and, as is inevitable in the world of poker, many of them would not return to see day 2 of the event. Among those lost during day 1A were Phil Ivey, Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson, Erick Lindgren, Pascal Perrault, Jeffrey Lisandro, Andreas Hoivold, Matt “ch0ppy” Kay, Ben Grundy, Tony G, Andreas Krause, David Colclough, Julian Thew, John Kabbaj, Annette Obrestad, and Barny Boatman.
Another player to get felted was the only former Grand Final champion playing today, Rob Hollink. Hollink, who won the first-ever Grand Final in 2005 for €635,000, failed to get anything going all day. After nursing a short-stack for some time, he finally pushed all in with A-8, only to get called by pocket jacks. An ace on the flop was nothing more than a false hope, as a jack hit the turn to prevent him from becoming the first-ever two-time Grand Final champion.
One player went from being a short-stack and teetering on the brink of elimination to become the chip leader in the tournament, all in the span of a few hands. Internet poker phenom Chris “Genius28” Lee had been struggling with a short-stack for much of the day, hovering near 10,000 in chips. He eventually climbed up to a respectable 20,000 before getting involved in two monster pots wherein he eliminated two players in a row.
In the first hand, a preflop raise-fest resulted in Lee calling an all in preflop versus an opponent’s pocket tens. Lee held queens and was in good shape … that is, until the flop brought a 10. Lee didn’t even flinch, and the river put a queen on the board to double him up to 42,000. Then, in the very next hand, Lee got involved in a big pot with fellow Internet pro Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson. After heavy action throughout the hand, Johnson ended up raising all in on the turn of a jack-high board. Lee called with pocket aces, and Johnson’s K-J failed to catch up. Lee was catapulted into the top three for the chip lead with 86,000 after the hand, and eventually ended the night with 82,000.
Johnny Lodden also pulled into the top three chip leaders by the night's end. Lodden, best known as one of the most successful cash game players on the Internet, used powerful betting and an aggressive style to chip up all day long. He pulled into the chip lead early on in the day and eventually settled into second place in the counts with around 90,000 to end the night.
The day was originally scheduled to come to a close after six levels of play. The tournament organizers announced before play began that they had upped it to seven levels of play, but player complaints after six levels resulted in a compromise of six and a half levels. The day ended after those six and a half levels of play, at about 1:15 a.m. local time. The 171 remaining players had endured more than 12 hours of play, and they will have tomorrow off to recuperate for the combined field of day 2 on Monday.
The chip leaders at the end of the night were:
Play will resume tomorrow at 7 a.m. ET (1 p.m. local time) for day 1B. Join us then to find out who else will be in the hunt for the first-place prize, what that prize will be, and how many total entrants the tournament will have. Set your browser to CardPlayer.com for the most up-to-date chip counts, live updates, photos, videos, and more from the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Grand Final in Monte Carlo.
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