Just about a month ago, PokerStars parted ways with Latin American players Humberto Brenes, Angel Guillen and Jose "Nacho" Barbero. Now, the world's largest poker site has cut ties with another three pros, including 2009 WSOP Main Event champion Joe Cada, who has over 10 million in live tournament earnings.
Both starting days at the 2014 European Poker Tour Deauville Main Event (played at Casino Barriere [France]) are in the books. Day 1A saw 234 runners and 433 players signed up for Day 1B and approximately 380 players will return to the poker tables today at noon. Ayman Zbib of Lebanon is the overall chip leader with a stack of 181,400; he will be joined today by several big names in the poker world, including Team PokerStars ProsBertrand "ElkY" Grospellier (picture - dressed up as a popular video game character for Day 1B. Can you guess who?) and Alex Kravchenko of Russia.
Registration will remain open until the beginning of Day 2, so we will know the final number of entrants (and prizepool) later on today. We will be back with another brief report tomorrow morning.
Many big names were lost during the second day of the EPT Berlin main event: Max Lykov, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Eugene Katchalov, Jeff Hakim, Tobias Reinkemeier, Mattias De Meulder, Benny Spindler, Jake Cody, Vanessa Selbst, and a few others. Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi, the Day 1B chip leader, also failed to make it through the day. Mizrachi was sent packing during the fourth level with the nut flush against the turned full house of Khiem Nguyen, a young German player.
Boris Becker is the most familiar name among the 175 players who will return to play in a few hours. The former German tennis pro will bring 113,000 chips to the tables, which is about average. He will be joined by notables such as Theo Jorgensen (171,600), Olivier Busquet (170,000), Alex Kravchenko (135,000) and Liv Boeree (85,400). The money bubble will burst when 136 players remain (€8,000 minimum cash) and the winner will take home an incredible €880,000!
PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker is now in the books after that the Main Event and the High Roller event finished early yesterday morning. What an amazing ending the 2010 WCOOP got! Tyson "POTTERPOKER" Marks won the Main Event and took home the biggest cash prize in the history of online tournament poker ($2,278,097) and Alex "Kravchencko" Kravchenko, the russian poker pro who finished in 4th place in the 2007 WSOP Main Event, took home the Eight Game High Roller event ($345,800) after a very exciting final table which included quite a few notables.
259 players in total made it from Day 1a & b to Day 2 of EPT Snowfest in Saalbach-Hinterglemm. David Wintersberg, the big chip leader from Day 1, had to give way for Team PokerStars Pros Johannes Strassmann (1st place -747,000 chips - right on picture) and Richard Toth (2nd place - 584,500 chips - left on picture) during Day 2 as both of them played amazing poker from beginning to end.
Day 3 of the tournament is now about to start. 86 players have made it this far (most of them PokerStars Pros and online qualifiers) and 80 of them are guaranteed to get at least €5000+. However, I doubt that anyone of the remaining players are happy with such small amounts after making it this far in an EPT tournament.
Lots of notables busted in Day 1b of the EPT Snowfest Main Event. Just to mention a few of them, Team PokerStars Sports Star Boris Becker, Team PokerStars Pros ElkY, Dario Minieri, Jan Heitmann and Pieter de Korver. 130 players survived Day 1b and they will now join the other 129 players who made it through Day 1a of the tournament. In other words, 259 players will play Day 2 of the tournament.
Most of the players in the top of the field are from Day 1a of the tournament. Most notable players in the top of the field are Team PokerStars Pros Johannes Strassmann (Germany), Alex Kravchenko (Russia) and Vadim Markushevski (Belarus).
The seventh season of the very popular European Tour has now started. The first stop was meant to be in Moscow, Russia. But a few weeks ago a new law was introduced in Russia which makes it illegal to organize live poker events in any part of the country. Due to this new law, the first tournament was moved to Kyiv in Ukraine.
Day 1a of the main event (€5000 buy-in) has already been played. The tournament attracted 129 players who received a fantastic welcome ceremony featuring a four-man drumming troupe and more than 50 Ukrainian folk dancers. PokerStars pros that played Day 1a were Alex Kravchenko and Luca Pagano. Kravchenko is through to day 2 with 45,450 in chips. Pagano got knocked out in the early stages of the tournament. A total of 93 players are through to Day 2, these many players made it through to day 2 because of the brand new EPT main event structure which gives each player a 30,000 starting stack. Chip leader after Day 1a is Mihaylo Demidenko from Ukraine with 145,125 chips.
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Just about a month ago, PokerStars parted ways with Latin American players Humberto Brenes, Angel Guillen and Jose "Nacho" Barbero. Now, the world's largest poker site has cut ties with another three pros, including 2009 WSOP Main Event champion Joe Cada, who has over 10 million in live tournament earnings. 
