Day 1b of the €1,100 French National Championship Kicks Off at Noon!
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At 12 p.m. local time, the 2019 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour will once again see poker enthusiasts from near and far head over to the Monte-Carlo Sporting right at the French Riviera and take their seats in the Salle des Etoiles for Day 1b of the €1,100 French National Championship.
The mid-stakes highlight of the festival, formerly known as the France Poker Series and EPT National, is off to a solid start after yesterday's first flight attracted a field of 353 entries and played down to the top 15% before bagging and tagging. For all those that wish to take over the overall lead for Day 2, more than 20 times the starting stack of 30,000 are required as Baptiste Carteau managed just that by bagging up 607,000 last night.
All those hopefuls that entered and left without anything to show for on Day 1a can take another two shots today, as Day 1b kicks off at noon and the final flight provides the last opportunity to run up a stack as of 6 p.m. local time. Each participant receives 30,000 in chips and the registration is open for the first eight 40-minute levels until approximately 6 p.m. local time.
Among those already confirmed to take part is $25,000 PokerStars NL Hold'em Players Championship winner and PokerStars ambassador Ramon "Mr__Boxes" Colillas, who kicked off the current year with a bang on the Bahamas by turning a CEP leaderboard prize into a payday of $5.1 million. Back in January, Colillas defeated Julien Martini in heads-up, and the Frenchman has bagged up the third-biggest stack here in Monte-Carlo on Day 1a already.
As usual, the new and popular big blind ante format will be used for this tournament and all players that run out of chips can re-enter into the final flight later today in order to battle once more for the expected seven-figure prize pool. Among them will be defending champion Guillaume Diaz, who jumped in late the previous evening and didn't advance to Day 2 just yet.
Lean back and enjoy the show with the PokerNews live updates from the floor, as a bumper field is expected in Monte-Carlo.
of Ignatov on a board of 
.
, Maria Konnikova bet 10,000 and her sole remaining opponent Christian Rotundo made the call. Konnikova turned over 
for a set of queens and Rotundo had that beat with 
for the king-high straight.
, Duff Charette and Sergey Verkhoturov got their stacks in after the latter check-raised from 4,000 to 13,000 and called the shove of Charette for almost his entire stack.
river and doubled for 31,900, leaving his opponent with a mountain to climb.
.
and Sinclair had that dominated with the 
and Dmitriev headed to the rail.
flop, only Le Touche called a continuation bet for 11,000 by Martin and the latter then jammed the 
turn for 32,100. Le Touche reluctantly called and Martin, who was part of the three-way all in for Kristen Bicknell's straight flush, turned over 
and the 
river was a formality.
flop, the action checked to Rudolf Domin on the button and he made it 6,500 to go. Defending champion Guillaume Diaz called, as did Bruno Caron from one seat over. The same then happened on the 
