The penultimate day of the 2019 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino EPT is featuring the start of the last €25,000 tournament of the festival which will be a two-day affair. The €25,000 No-Limit Hold’em tournament kicks off at 6 PM local time in the Americas Room in the Monte Carlo Bay Resort & Hotel.
A lot of the best players in the world have come to Monaco to battle it out against their peers and this is one of the last chances for the big names to stake their claim on the trophy and what promises to be a pretty large first-place prize. The players will receive 50,000 in chips and six time bank cards when they first take their seats. The tournament features 30-minute levels and there are ten levels of play scheduled for the first day with a 30-second shot clock throughout the days. There will be a 20-minute break after every four levels.
Players can reenter an unlimited number of times until the start of Day 2, Saturday, May 4 at 12:30 PM. Anyone who makes Day 2 will also receive 3 additional time bank cards at the start of the day and another 3 will be handed out to each player when the final table has been reached.
Day 1 Structure
Level
Duration
Small Blind
Big Blind
BB Ante
1
30
100
200
200
2
30
100
300
300
3
30
200
400
400
4
30
200
500
500
Break
20
5
30
300
600
600
6
30
400
800
800
7
30
500
1,000
1,000
8
30
600
1,200
1,200
Break
20
9
30
800
1,600
1,600
10
30
1,000
2,000
2,000
The PokerNews live reporting team will be around all evening to bring you all the action from Monte Carlo as the festival is slowly winding down with some more high stakes action.
The flop read and Mikita Badziakouski had checked in the small blind and Ole Schemion bet 4,500 in the big blind. Badziakouski took some time to consider his options and then decided to raise to 13,000. Schemion responded by putting a big stack of chips in to put Badziakouski snap-called.
"Side bet?" they asked each other. "Twenty again?" and they both confirmed.
Mikita Badziakouski:
Ole Schemion:
Badziakouski had flopped an open-ended straight draw while Schemion had the pair of queens.
"Hold!" Schemion pleaded.
The rest of the board was completed with the on the turn and the on the river for Schemion to eliminate Badziakouski for now and win the side bet.
Badziakousk made his way out of the tournament area but asked till when the registration would remain open which is until the start of Day 2, Saturday, May 4.
Dead last of 30 players coming into Day 4 of the EPT Monte Carlo €5,300 Main Event to chip leading within three levels — it’s been a very lucky day for amateur poker player Wei Huang.
The 34-year-old amateur poker player from Shanghai, China is enjoying his very first trip to Europe, and picked a great time to run good.
While he stays busy with his job as a finance controller for PepsiCo, Huang loves poker and plays for fun when he can. Sitting with the big-time pros late in the Main Event in Monaco, Huang is a little starstruck, but not letting it interfere with his game. In the late levels of the day, he's been seated with the likes of Ryan Riess, Sam Greenwood and Manig Loeser at the featured live-streamed table.
“It’s amazing because when I look at them, they’re like my idols. I’m a big fan of most of these players.”
Click here to read the full article at the PokerNews homepage.
After ten quick levels of 30 minutes each, Day 1 of the €25,000 No-Limit Hold’em has come to an end with 17 players bagging up chips out of 39 entries. The tournament clock showed 41 entries in total with 11 reentries even though two of those entries didn’t take their seats during the day. So at least 19 players will return for Day 2 tomorrow, Saturday, May 4 as the registration period is open until the start. Claiming the Day 1 chip lead is Spain’s Adrian Mateos with 186,500.
Mateos hasn’t had much luck in the events here during the 2019 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino EPT as he hasn’t cashed yet and this might be the last chance for the Spaniard to save the week. Trailing Mateos is Seth Davies with 176,000. Davies has cashed three times already over the past days, two of them were earned while reaching a final table, the biggest for finishing in eighth place in the €50,000 Single-Day High Roller. Third on the podium is Jean-Noel Thorel with 165,000. The Frenchman has already reached two final tables this week and will be looking to add a third to his results here in the Monte Carlo Bay Resort & Hotel.
Ivan Leow, Isaac Haxton, Steve O’Dywer, and Joao Simao all used three bullets with the latter the only one to not survive in the end. Foxen, Kazuhiko Yotsushika and PokerStars Ambassador Andre Akkari were responsible for the other reentries in the tournament. Both Foxen and Akkari have made it through to the final day of the event and the festival.
Sam Greenwood joined the field after beingeliminated from the Main Event in 12th place for €45,570 and spent some of his prize money buying into this tournament. Unfortunately for him, he was eliminated during the night but might be back before the start of Day 2. Kristen Bicknell and Hideki Izutsu both min-cashed the €25,000 EPT High Roller earlier on the night and decided to jump into the tournament too. They both made it through but with a below average stack, there is some work left for them to do to make the money stages in this event.
Some of the players who were eliminated during the evening who might return to the felt included Andras Nemeth, Chin Wei Lim, and Mikita Badziakouski. If they return, Day 2 will resume at 12:30 PM local time in the Salle des Etoiles with Level 11 which features a small blind of 1,000, big blind of 2,500, and a big blind ante of 2,500. Play will continue until a winner has been crowned so make sure to return for the final day of the live coverage by the PokerNews live reporting team.