PokerStars European Poker Tour Vilamoura -- Day 1B Recap

An exciting day of poker took place yesterday at the Vilamoura Casino with day 1B of Portugal’s first PokerStars.com European Poker Tour. The tournament floor was riddled with stars of the live and virtual felts, in total making up a field of 186. This, added to day 1A’s 136, means the official figure for this season’s EPT Vilamoura is 322.

Some big names who showed up for the €5,300 buy-in main event were Peter Eastgate, Dario Minieri, Sorel Mizzi, Bertrand Grospellier [pictured right], Ross Boatman, Davidi Kitai, Pascal Perrault, Huck Seed, Sebastian Ruthenberg, Praz Bansi, Sami Kelopuro, Gunnar Rabe, Stefan Mattson, and Juan Maceiras, but in the end, only 101 of them made it through the carnage of a fast and furious day.

Vilamoura’s total field is predominantly European, with a decent measure of Germans, French, and Spanish thrown in among the 30 countries being represented. It is, however, dominated by locals, with players from Portugal taking up 20 percent of the field — the highest percentage in the nationality breakdown. Despite this, one Canadian sits atop day 1B’s leader board with 143,400 in chips — former chess champ Jeff Sarwer. He is one of two who got through day 1B, with Luc Greenwood sitting on a less healthy 37,100 in chips.

An American doing well in the ranks is PokerStars qualifier James Collopy (122,400). He is one of three U.S. survivors on day 1B, including Jason Helder (22,100) and Todd Nagata (32,100).

Also surviving the second starting day are three players who at this event are making their debut as members of the Team PokerStars Pro — UK’s J.P. Kelly (93,700), Portugal’s Henrique Pinho (82,000), and Ireland’s Jude Ainsworth (13,100).

Some notables and their chip counts:

Johannes Van Til — 98,000
Christophe Benzimra — 90,600
Nicolas Levi — 87,300
Julian Thew — 83,500
Andy Black — 74,400
Johannes Strassmann — 64,400
Sami Kelopuro — 63,900
Luca Pagano — 60,400
Juan Manuel Pastor — 56,600
Ross Boatman — 56,200
Ivo Donev — 36,000
Alexander Kravchenko — 29,000

Some familiar names missing on this list are Sorel Mizzi, Juan Maceiras, Sebastian Ruthenberg, Carter Phillips, Pascal Perrault, and Marcin Horecki, as they failed to make it through to day 2.

Here are some other big busts from the day:

George Danzer’s demise began when, after betting his way through a board, he was called all the way down by not one, but two opponents. He had pocket aces, but one of the callers had A-9 and hit running nines on the turn and river. His remaining chips went in the middle on a board featuring a king and a jack. Danzer showed Q-J, but his opponent had a king, and Danzer only lived to tell the story.

Huck Seed [pictured left] traveled all the way to Portugal from the U.S., only to go out quite early on his first day.

On a Q 5 4 flop, Rob Yong bet 2,000, and Seed raised it to 7,000. Yong reraised to 17,000, and Seed gave it some consideration. He then decided to put all of his chips in, which was an extra 8,000 for Yong to call. The Brit threw the 8,000 in and turned over J 10 for the flush draw, while Seed turned over 5 4 for two pair. The turn was the 2, but the 6 came in on the river to give Yong his flush.

“I really did not like making the all-in [push],” said Seed as he shook the hand of his opponent and left the floor.

It’s nothing new to see Dario Minieri’s chip stack fluctuate wildly in the early levels of a tournament, but more times than not, the young Italian manages to make it through to mid/late session with a nice stack to play with. Not this time however.

First, he lost a hefty chunk to Matthew Nieberg when he called the Englishman’s all in with K-Q on a 10-8-4 flop. Nieberg had pocket fours for the set, and Minieri stayed well behind. Then he doubled up through Peter Eastgate when his pocket aces hit a set on the flop, putting the two on an even keel of around 10,000 in chips each.

They then decided to come up with a last-longer bet, and shortly thereafter, Minieri was put out at the hands of Juan Manuel Pastor, meaning Eastgate won their battle. One hand later and Eastgate joined him at the rail as yet another hopeful-turned-onlooker. His pocket queens ran into Nieberg’s pocket aces and failed to improve.

Team PokerStars Pro member Luca Pagano [pictured right] took out teammate Vanessa Rousso after he called her preflop all-in bet. Rousso had A J, and Pagano revealed 9 9. The flop came down Q 10 6, giving Rousso some hope, but the turn and river were the Q and the 5, and it was “Ciao” to Rousso from Pagano.

Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier raised to 1,500 preflop from under the gun, and Stefan Mattson called from middle position. Jeff Sarwer also made the call. The flop was dealt 9 9 6, and ElkY bet 3,300. Mattson called, but Sarwer threw a spanner into the mix by raising it to 8,625. This, in turn, prompted ElkY to reraise it to 26,000, leaving himself only 5,000 behind. Mattson folded, and Sarwer went into the tank.

Realising that ElkY didn’t have him totally covered, he then shoved all in, ElkY called, and finally the two showed their cards. Sarwer revealed 9 7 for trips, while ElkY turned over A 8 for the flush draw. A spade did not appear on the turn or the river, and the French poker phenomenon made his exit.

Today, 177 players take to the felt for day 2 at noon (local time). The top three on the leader board from day 1A remain the top three going into day 2 with Austrian Ljubomir Josipovic as king of the castle with 192,900.

Catch all of the action as it happens at the PokerStars blog in the live tournaments section on CardPlayer.com during the entirety of this event, and on Saturday, Nov. 21 and Sunday, Nov. 22 you can watch all of the action on the EPT Live video feed. Card Player Europe will also supply a daily recap for each day of this exciting event, so stay tuned.

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