April 17 2012, Marc Convey

Day 1a was just the warm up to the carnage that ensued on Day 1b at the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Berlin. The Grand Hyatt hotel was not big enough to contain the Day 1b crowd, and nine tables had to be opened next door in the Spielbank Berlin. The field ballooned to 502 players, more than twice the size of yesterday’s field. The top 112 players will earn a minimum of “7,500, and an appearance at this prestigious final table will guarantee you at least “72,000.

Cengiz Ulusu’s finished the day as chip leader, amassing 242,800 in chips. The stack he bagged also makes him the overall Day 1 leader, Vladimir Geshkenbein’s stack of 201,600 from Day 1a.

Whereas Monday was a superior day for Team PokerStars Pro, Tuesday was more difficult. Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier (40,900) will be back for Day 2 along with Viktor Blom (109,900), George Danzer (54,100), Alex Kravchenko (49,000), Nuno Coelho (8,500), Matthias De Meulder (14,500), and Friend Of PokersStars Charlotte Van Brabander (37,300).

The same can not be said for the following Team PokerStars Pros, because all of them were eliminated on Day 1b: Arnaud Mattern, Max Lykov, Lex Veldhuis, Johnny Lodden, Sebastian Ruthenberg, Jude Ainsworth, Andre Akkari, Rino Mathis, Ville Wahlbeck, Liv Boeree, Sadra Naujoks, Mickey Petersen, Marcin Horecki, Lex Veldhuis, Fatima Moreira de Melo, Eugene Katchalov, Toni Judet, Pius Heinz, Jonathan Duhamel, Christophe De Meulder, and Victor Ramdin.

Ramdin was particularly unlucky because he was up to 122,000 at his high point, but a series of hands went very badly for him. He flopped top set in one hand but lost out to an opponent who made a straight. Then he got his last 30,000 in with pocket queens only to run into pocket kings.

Pius Heinz was eliminated when he ran his queens into Bahadir Kilickeser’s and Ali Azabdaftar’s . Kilickeser was the happiest at the end though, because he found the other two kings in the deck to make quads.

Other players who excelled during Day 1b, include Kevin MacPhee, who cracked sets and flopped sets on his way to finishing with 139,100. Davidi Kitai won races, dropped back a little by losing races, and recovered to end with 197,700. Then there’s Calvin Anderson (205,100), Mario Puccini (198,900), Marc Wright (182,600), Dan Smith (173,600), Michiel Brummelhuis (173,500), and Konstantinos Tsirakidis (168,000) who have all moved into contention.

End of Day 1b Chip Counts

The remaining 329 players from both starting flights will all be in the same room on Wednesday. Play will resume at 1200 CET (0300 PDT), and as always, the PokerNews Team will be bringing you all the action live from the felt.

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March 27 2012, Marc Convey

Day 1b of the PokerStars.it European Poker Tour Campione attracted 392 players. Combined with Day 1a’s field of 178, the total entrants of the EPT Campione Main Event soared to 570, creating a prize pool of “2,764,500. A cool “640,000 of that prize pool will go to the winner. Former EPT Grand Final champion Nicolas Chouity emerged on top of the chip counts, with 165,900.

A lot of those chips came during an end-of-day tussle with Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Selbst. She came into the press room to say, “Six-bet shoved into aces!” Selbst had jack-nine suited and was drawing dead by the turn.

Chouity won’t be able to rest on his laurels though because he’s amongst an end-of-day top 10 that looks like this:

However, the aforementioned players all trail Davide Andreoni, the Day 1a chip leader, who will come back for Day 2 with the overall lead – 175,100.

Four times as many PokerStars Team Pros entered Day 1b as they had on Day 1a. The Pros had a mostly successful day with 13 of the 16 who played moving on to Day 2. Here’s how they ended up: Arnaud Mattern (21,000), Matthias de Meulder (73,200), Eugene Katchalov (59,800), Liv Boeree (43,600), Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier (90,200), Dag Palovic (7,600), Pier Paolo Fabretti (39,100), Max Martinez (31,800), Victor Ramdin (50,800) and Fatima Moreira de Melo (14,900).

Team PokerStars Pros Luca Moschitta, Dario Minieri, Salvatore Bonavena, and Lex Veldhuis all came, battled, but failed to win for their badge. Minieri’s day ended when he ran the mighty into Irene Baroni’s pocket aces. Bonavena flopped top pair, moved all in, but was flushed away by Bryn Kenney. Veldhuis’ kicker let him down and he fell to Andrea Benelli.

David Vamplew had a great day. He battled with former EPT champion Michael Eiler early on before hitting quads and never looking back en route to amassing a 100,100 stack. Chris Moorman finished with 64,400, helped by a hand where he held pocket kings that found the last remaining one in the deck to stay alive and crack an opponent’s aces.

John Eames’ success on the EPT (besides one final table appearance) has mainly been in crushing side events. His main event came to an end when he ran a set into a bigger set. Dominik Nitsche got off to a great start before he fell back toward his starting stack, and then was undone when he made a move and ran into Andrey Gulyy’s aces. He said afterward, “When people shake they have it, right? I still couldn’t find a fold.” Jeff Sarwer, Will Molson, Ash Mason, Zimnan Ziyard, Andrew Frankenberger, and Michael Tureniec were all eliminated on Day 1b as well.

Day 2 begins Wednesday at 1400 CEST (0500 PST), when the remaining 325 players will converge in the same room to play until the official PokerStars Party kicks off – on a boat on Lake Lugano.

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