With the €50,000 Single-Day High Roller going off next door, Day 1a running yesterday, and the average poker player's penchant for late registration, the field seems devoid of a lot of superstars here in Level 1.
However, Andreas Hoiviold is here. European Poker Tour fans will no doubt remember that Hoivold captured the €5,000 EPT Main Event at Dortmund, Germany in Season 3 for €672,000.
The Norweigan was one of the early stars of the EPT, has since collected better than $1.7 million in career tournament earnings and even appeared on the popular American cash game TV show High Stakes Poker .
Hoivold's story isn't all champagne and roses, however. It is public knowledge that at 21 years old, the now 40-something Hoivold broke almost every bone in his body in a car accident that killed one of his passengers. He spent months in hospital, was in a wheelchair for almost a year and served five months in prison after being charged and convicted of vehicular manslaughter.
Hoivold, who still suffers from chronic pain, discovered poker years later in 2004, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Chance Kornuth, who continued his blazing hot year by winning the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final €10,300 Single Reentry High Roller for €351,108 earlier this week, is in the field today.
Kornuth has found massive scores on three continents so far in 2016, earning $192,780 with a seventh-place finish in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $25,000 High Roller, winning the AU$25,000 Challenge at the Aussie Millions for AU$790,560 and taking second in the EPT Dublin €25,750 High Roller for €360,150.
Today, in just the first few hands, he appears to be getting the respect he's earned, picking up the blinds and antes with an under the gun raise to 300, getting a walk in the big blind, and forcing a fold when he came over the top of a 200-chip button raise, making it 750.
The second and final starting day for the 2016 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final €5,300 Main Event will go off on the grounds of the Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort beginning at 12 p.m. local time today.
Yesterday's first flight drew 286 entries, and with a bumper crop of online qualifiers and top pros expected, organizers are readying themselves for an even bigger field today. They plan to play eight 75-minute levels, and all who survive through them will join the 167 who bagged up chips on Day 1a for Day 2 Monday.
Adrian Mateos beat a field of 564 to earn €1,082,000 and the title here last year. The Spaniard is expected to show up and defend the prestigious title today, and will surely be joined by some of the biggest names in the game hunting European Poker Tour glory.
Plans are to take a 20-minute break every two levels and a dinner break after the end of level six, with tons of poker action in between. The day should wrap up around midnight local time and the PokerNews live reporting team will be here from now, until a winner is crowned on May 6th.
Just sit back and take it all in as Day 1b of the 2016 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final €5,300 Main Event should be legendary.