December 06 2011, Eric Ramsey

Tuesday was a record-setting day at the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Prague. The Day 1a flight a day prior had drawn 234 runners to the felt, and the Day 1b session pulled 488 players to round out the field at 722. That’s far and away the largest major poker tournament ever hosted by the Czech Republic, and it puts a first prize of “775,000 up for grabs. The attendance was also up significantly from last year’s 563 and the previous record, Season 6′s 584-player field.

A leisurely eight levels left 274 survivors bagging up chips in time to catch a late dinner in Old Town. Andrey Saenko emerged from Tuesday’s flight with the most chips, and his 200,800-chip stack makes him the overall leader heading into the combined Day 2. He’s the only player to have crested the two-century mark so far. With more players in the room and more chips on the tables, eight players were able to accumulate stacks larger than Day 1a’s leader Vedzizhev Beslan (132,200).

The Team PokerStars Pros were out en masse on Tuesday, including one half of Team PokerStars Pro Czech Republic, Martin Hruby. He had a quiet day hovering around his starting stack, and he’ll have some work do Wednesday with around 20,000 chips left.

From just across the border, Slovakia’s Dag Palovic also played Day 1b, though it was hard to spot him at first. Thanks to a prop bet with the aforementioned Hruby, Palovic came to play dressed in drag with a black dress, gloves, and a long blonde wig. The outfit suited him well; Palovic survived to bag up 73,200 at night’s end.

Also surviving from the Team PokerStars family were Liv Boeree, Lex Veldhuis, Jude Ainsworth, Luca Pagano, Bertrand Grospellier, and 2010 World Champ Jonathan Duhamel.

Speaking of world champs, the reigning World Series of Poker champ, Pius Heinz was in the house for Day 1b, but things did not go so well for him. Midway though the day, the champ was crippled in a three-way pot when his pocket tens ran into Dominik Nitsche’s two jacks. Heinz was left short with about ten big blinds, and he was relieved of that remainder a few orbits later and headed to the rail. There, he was joined by Salvatore Bonavena, Arnaud Mattern, Dario Minieri, Sandra Naujoks, Ivan Demidov, Sebastian Ruthenberg, and Johannes Strassmann as Team Pros who failed to survive the first day.

The eliminations came at a quick pace as the day dragged on, and a few notables managed to amass dangerous chip stacks. Lebanon’s Ramez Haddad was one of the first to pip across the 100,000-chip mark, and Sweden’s Anton Wigg, who is a former EPT champion, was doing similarly quick work at the adjacent table. Max Greenwood has a bracelet but no EPT title, but his Day 1b went rather swimmingly to leave him with just shy of 100,00 chips in the bag for Day 2. Max Silver put a beat on someone early on to double his starting stack, and he managed to work it up to 177,100 by the end of the eight-level day. That’s good for third place overall.

More notables atop the chip counts include Mads Wissing (178,300) Jude Ainsworth (151,700), William Thorson (133,400), Melanie Weisner (123,600), Ville Wahlbeck (121,500), and Liv Boeree (108,700).

With 133 making it through Day 1a, a total of 407 players will return for a big Day 2 on Wednesday. Play recommences at 1200 CET (0300 PST), and our Live Reporting Team will be right on the rail to bring you all of the action as it unfolds.

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Follow Eric Ramsey on Twitter – @Eric_Ramsey

December 05 2011, Brett Collson

After two months of publicity stunts, the “Jungleman Challenge” turned out to be a bigger flop than the “Durrrr Challenge.” But there’s still plenty of high-stakes action in Prague this week, and we’ll bring you that story and more in this edition of the Nightly Turbo.

In Case You Missed It

Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, Johnny Chan, Andrew Robl, and Sam Trickett are among the pros playing the big cash games in Macau. Here’s a breakdown of the latest action from StarWorld’s Poker King Club.[/I]

The 2011 World Poker Tour Prague Main Event reached a final table on Sunday. Find out which pros were still in the hunt in our Day 3 recap.

As one major event in Prague comes to a close, another commenced. The European Poker Tour is also in Prague and Day 1a is already in the books.

How did McLean Karr get his start in poker? Find out that and more in Part 1 of the latest Seat Open series.

How did the Sunday Majors play out on PokerStars? Who took home the biggest win? Find out in the Sunday Briefing.

High-Stakes Cash Game Replaces Jungleman Challenge

Dan “Jungleman” Cates didn’t find any takers for a heads-up challenge he issued to the world, so the high-stakes prodigy is instead hosting a cash game in Prague on Tuesday, Dec. 6, that will be streamed on worldpokertour.com and thepokerfarm.com.

Cates will face off against Luke “FullFlush” Schwartz, Eoghan O’Dea, Tobias Reinkemeier, Czech businessman Jan Barta, and others, in a “100/”200 cash game with a minimum buy-in of “10,000. The hole cards will be shown and live commentary will be provided during the action by Jesse May.

In October, Cates publicly challenged anyone in the world to play him in a heads-up match at stakes of “200/”400 with a minimum buy-in of “100,000.

Organizers upped the ante by introducing a World Poker Heavyweight Championship belt to be given to the winner of the heads-up match, but the spectacle gained little interest and was even scoffed at by many top pros.

Tuesday’s cash game will get underway at 1600 CET (0700 PST) and will be aired on a 15-minute delay, as was scheduled for the original Jungleman Challenge. On Monday, PokerNews’ Kristy Arnett spoke with Cates about the upcoming cash game in Prague:

More info about Tuesday’s cash game can be found at thepokerfarm.com.

PokerStars Sets Another Guinness World Record

PokerStars shattered its own Guinness World Record Sunday when 200,000 players took part in a $1 no-limit hold’em tournament, besting the previous mark for most players to ever compete in a single online tournament.

The previous record of 149,196 players, set in 2009, was cleared easily on Sunday as the cap of 200,000 players was reached nearly four hours before the tournament even started. Guinness World Record Adjudicator Gaz Deaves was on hand for the celebration in Prague to certify that PokerStars had established an official new World Record.

Russian player “sokoluk1991″ ultimately took down the title after a three-way chop saw each player collect at least $25,000. “Sokoluk1991″ earned $40,258, while Estonia’s “Kaitz20″ earned $34,000 and the United Kingdom’s “King-2-Z” found $25,741 in their account after it was all said and done.

The world record marked the official launch of PokerStars’ 10th Anniversary celebration, which will continue through Dec. 18 and include a $10 Million Sunday Million tournament, a chance to win one of 100 trips to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, and several other prizes.

Get more info on the 10th Anniversary promotions at PokerStars.com.

22 Players Confirmed for $1 Million Buy-in Event at WSOP

The world’s richest poker tournament is closer to becoming a reality. On Monday, Caesars Interactive Entertainment announced that 22 players have already committed to the Big One for One Drop, the $1 million buy-in tournament taking place at the 2012 World Series of Poker. The event will run from July 1 through 3, 2012, at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, and will award the first-ever platinum WSOP bracelet to the winner.

ONE DROP Chair and Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté introduced the historic tournament in June with a goal of raising enough money for a project that will see an impoverished country receiving access to clean water. Of the $1 million buy-in, $111,111 will be donated to ONE DROP, leaving $888,889 of each entry fee going directly into the rake-free prize pool.

Among players that have committed to the event so far include Patrik Antonius, Gus Hansen, Daniel Negreanu, Johnny Chan, Tom Dwan, Tony Guoga, Jonathan Duhamel, and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier.

More information on the Big One for One Drop can be found at PokerNews.com.

Fabian Quoss Wins GUKPT Grand Final

German poker pro Fabian Quoss defeated a talented final table to win the Grosvenor United Kingdom Poker Tour Grand Final on Sunday, picking up a top prize of £138,750 and his third major live title. Quoss, who had previous wins at the 2010 English Poker Open and the 2011 German Championship of Poker, outlasted a field of 195 players to win the £2,500 buy-in GUKPT event in London.

Poker triple-crown winner Jake Cody began the final table with the chip lead on Sunday, holding a slight lead over Quoss when play began. Cody, who already has titles at the World Series of Poker, European Poker Tour and World Poker Tour, as well as a High Roller victory at the United Kingdom and Ireland Poker Tour, ultimately fell just short of his fifth different series win on Sunday.

After pros like John Gale, James Mitchell and Lalit Khajuria were ousted from the final table, Cody and Quoss were the final two players remaining with virtually even chip stacks. However, it took only 20 minutes to decide a winner as the German won an all-in preflop battle with ace-queen against the king-jack of Cody to secure the victory.

Get the full results from the GUKPT Grand Final at the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour website.

EPT Hits Prague

The PokerNews Live Reporting Team is in Prague for the European Poker Tour. Kristy Arnett took a tour of the city’s most popular tourist stops.

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Follow Brett Collson on Twitter – @brettcollson