Home / Poker News April 2012 / EPT Grand Final – Day 1A Report
EPT Grand Final – Day 1A Report
Posted by: James Carter. - Thu, 2012-04-26 12:17
The Grand Final of the
European Poker Tour has returned to its rightful home this season: Monte Carlo. While the Madrid outing last year wasn’t bad at all, Monte Carlo is the right place for an event of this magnitude. Day 1A drew a relatively modest starting field of 271, but the quality of the field far outpaced its size. The second day 1 flight is pretty much guaranteed to swell the numbers up where they should be for a high-profile event such as this one.
Of the 271 players, Martin Kabrhel emerged with the largest stack. He started the day on the right foot indeed: he picked up a 9,2o and saw a flop of 2,2,x with it. An opponent of his had pocket 10s and he got all his chips into the middle on it. Kabrhel made the call and bounced his opponent, picking up a bunch of chips early on. He continued to play well and at one point he managed to soar past the 200k mark. He then dropped some chips, finishing the day with 167.8k, still enough for the lead.
The interesting thing about Kabrhel’s day was that he played the last part of it with Freddy Deeb and John Eames at his table. Eames and Deeb had large stacks as well. They managed to avoid each-other and they all made it to Day 2. Deeb finished with 114.6k chips, while Eames amassed 157.2k. David Sands was another large-stack. He finished the day with 163.3k.
Sands was the one responsible for James Akenhead’s demise, whom he bounced within 2 hands. In the hand which resulted in Akenhead’s elimination Sands’ A,Qo came from behind to best Akenhead’s A,K. The player who won the last Grand Final held in Monaco, Nicolas Chouity, managed to make it past the day 1A hurdle too. Other notables to advance were: Steve O’Dwyer, Phil Ivey and Adam Levy. Tristan Clemencon had a good day too: he finished 5th, with 121.1k chips to his name.
