EPT Vienna Day 1b

The second day, day 1b at the Kursalon Palace saw over 350 poker players register to make the PokerStars EPT event in Vienna on of the largest Austrian fields ever with 578 people showing up to play. Some of the surprise shows included British champion J.P. Kelly who is hoping add to his two EPT titles, American poker pro Daniel Negreanu and the outsiders favourite bet for the tournament Nacho Barbero who only decided to enter at the last minute and arrived without having booked a hotel.

There are also a great number of Germans cross the border to join in, including Sebatian Ruthenberg and ex-tennis pro and well known poker face on the European circuit Boris Becker. Bertrand “ElkY” Grosspellier and Tom Dwan also made the trip making for a star studded day 1b.

When the chips were counted up at the end of the day the leader board had Brit, Laurence Houghton sitting on top with 190,300 in front of him, with Szymon Pieszczoch not far behind on 183,300. Yesterdays leading player Sergii Baranov only managed to reach third place overall with his 183,200 chips while Claudio Simaldoni 181,000 and Giacomo Maisto, 172,400 made up the top five.

The unfortunate early finishers on day 1b included Kelly and “ElkY” along with Italina Luca Pagano and John Juanda. Those left in while have to keep their wits about them as the competition for this event is quite tough if they want to make it all the way and take home some of the €2,890,000 prize pool.