Tokle leads, Babic pleased with Day 1

After an long Day 1, the remaining players have left the tournament area and we got to talk to the chip leader of EPEC 2010 - Morten Tokle from Norway with 165,500. We also had a quick chat with tournament director Alen Babic who is very pleased with who things worked out in the best possible way throughout the Day 1.

Team Challenge (End of Day 1)

Adneram and Manetta Out - Day 1 is over

Oywind Adneram from Norway finished 38th in EPEC 2010, just two spots from the money. Just after that, Maurizio Manetta from Switzerland got eliminated in the dreaded 37th spot - the Bubble. As soon as it was clear that Day 1 was over, there was a lot of cheering among the players that made the money and will be back tomorrow.

Gehrig stays strong

Reto Gehrig from Switzerland has been strong throughout the day and closing in on the end, he sits with one of the biggest stacks in the room - 85,000:

Debutant van der Burg with mixed emotions

Only three weeks after playing poker for the very first time, Marika van der Burg from Holland managed to qualify to EPEC 2010. After some serious studying of the game before coming to EPEC, she enjoyed her very first live event despite a rough elimination.

Tokle from Norway in the lead

More and more players around the tables are beginning to feel tired after a long day of playing poker. One who stays sharp is Morten Tokle from Norway who is our current chip leader on 153,000.

Unlucky players with no Prize

To be eliminated just before, or on, the bubble in a tournament is usually very grim. With only three more bust outs to come today, these are the guys who finished in 39th to 44th place (numbers before the name is in which order they got eliminated):

140 Spain Alberto Garcia
141 Belgium Michel Hermanns
142 Sweden Fredrik Norstrom
143 Italy Alfonso Pipoli
144 Hungary Zoltan Karpati
145 Belgium Benoit Saintviteux

Two girls remaining - Horvath and van der Linden

We are now getting very close to the money as there are 39 players left, and 36 prizes. The best remaining girl is Elizabeth van der Linden on 47k. Petra Horvath from Austria, who just eliminated Fredrik Norström, is a bit shorter on 28k.

Norström Eliminated in 43rd spot

Fredrik Norström from Sweden was desperataly short stacked on 6,300 and found a spot to put his money in, holding Ace-Three. Unfortunately for him he was called by Austrian Petra Horvath with Ace-Ten, which was enough to win the hand and eliminate the Swede.

Eight Eliminations from The Money

Everyone remaining this deep into Day 1 is of course keen on making it to the money. Here are a few that fell shortly before the end of Day 1:

132 France Jean-Marc Lojacono
133 Netherlands Michael Floors
134 Italy Angelo Torrisi
135 Belgium Karel Baert
136 Hungary Roland Sagvari
137 Netherlands Renate Lugtig
138 France Karim Bendaoud
139 Belgium Patrick Aerts

Bendaoud, Nordqvist and Willemse at EPEC

After level 12, all the remaining players went on a 15 minute break. Here are two of them who are still in, Frenchman Karim Bendaoud and Swede Bjorn Nordqvist, followed by Live poker debutant Anita Willemse who unfortunately just got eliminated. The Dutch qualifier was happy anyway with the stay in Gran Canaria.

Pole Zarebski in the Lead

We have now entered level 14 and the only remaining Polish player in the tournament, Jerzy Zarebski, is in a comfortable lead on 130,000. He is the biggest favourite at this point to make it to the money.

Closing in on the Money

With only 52 players left in the field, we will have another 16 eliminations before the end of Day 1. The remaining 36 players will come back on Sunday's Day 2 and they will all be going home with a prize check. Here are the latest casualties:

116 Italy Stefano Orru'
117 Germany Matthias Rolenz
118 the Netherlands Wouter Nijland
119 Germany Nadja Rothbarth
120 Switzerland Julia Wurth
121 Belgium Christophe Decatoire
122 Portugal Natalio Santos
123 Austria Elmar Sillhengst
124 Poland Krzysztof Krzywinski
125 Finland Henri Koivisto
126 Portugal Alexandre Costa
127 Austria Martin Woldrich
128 Norway Johannes Rygh
129 France Damien-Felix Thevot
130 Denmark Carsten Gudso
131 Denmark Michael Hedefelt

69 Players Left

The elimination pace is ever increasing here at Gran Casino Costa Meloneras. Here are the latest bunch of railers:

89 Spain Pablo Cid Romero
90 Sweden Daniel Bencze
91 Finland Olli Hakkinen
92 Italy Fransesco Biffi
93 France Laurent Caillon
94 Italy Fabrizio Ferrera
95 Spain Jose Luis Escobar
96 Finland Herman Suovaara
97 France Renaud Baudenon
98 Poland Marcin Ligocki
99 Germany Alexandre Sokolov
100 Finland Mikko Jakonen
101 Spain Daniel Gonzalez
102 Sweden Peter Fange
103 Italy Andrea Gerola
104 France Fabien Boulange
105 Poland Damian Patyra
106 Germany Boris Karklins
107 Hungary Marta Ivan
108 Sweden Jan Appelquist
109 Hungary Amarilla Szalai
110 Germany Ralf Geibel
111 Netherlands Anita Willemse
112 Norway Serhat Tiryaki
113 Finland Jarno Luoma
114 Denmark Evan Kristensen
115 Portugal Antonio Quintela

EPEC 2010 Team Challenge

100 players are out, so we have another 83 to go before we have a champion. Meanwhile the Team Challenge ranking is the following:

Jensen, Johansson and van der Linden at Dinner

Three of the players that made it to the dinner break on Day 1 are Morten Kjaer Jensen, Denmark, Michael Johansson, Sweden and Elizabeth van der Linden. As we can see there it is a good mix of experienced and not so experienced players here at EPEC on Gran Canaria.

Johansson - King of Qualifying

Swede Mikael Johansson is probably the most succesful online qualifier in the whole of Europe, maybe also in the World. He has made qualifying to live events his speciality and it has brought him to something like 100 live events over the last three years...amazing.

Double Danish Drop-out

The last two players to leave the EPEC are both from Denmark, Christian Jacobsen and Marc Vendelbo. There are also Spaniards, Austrians, Dutch, Finnish, Swedish, Polish, Portuguese, Swiss, Belgian and Norwegian casualties since the last list of knock outs:
65 Spain Lazaro Fernandes
66 Austria Christian Angerer
67 Netherlands Daniel Jansen
68 Finland Juha Olsbo
69 Sweden Emanuel Karlen
70 Austria Alexander Muller
71 Poland Robert Owsiany
72 Portugal Hugo Ferro
73 Switzerland Daniel Hongler
74 Belgium Jonathan Claessens
75 Switzerland Brian Cuttaz
76 Poland Hanna Grudzinska
77 Hungary Laszlo Bukovszky
78 Netherlands Mariska van der Burg
79 Belgium Maxime Leblanc
80 Portugal Joao Quinteiro
81 Belgium Jonathan Koszulap
82 Austria Wolfgang Brommer
83 Switzerland Jimmy Cuttaz
84 Norway Olav Haugen
85 Spain Jorge Carlos Delgado
86 Denmark Michael Frausing Jensen
87 Denmark Christian Jacobsen
88 Denmark Marc Vendelbo

Lugtig on average with 100 left

Renate Lugtig from Holland is one of the most experienced players in the field and also, for sure, one of the best female players over all in her home country. Renate also finished second in Everest's $100,000 guarantee online a while ago. She is around average, 18,000, with 100 players left in the field.

17 more Eliminations

48 Switzerland Carole Wyss Guizouni
49 Netherlands Erik Dignum
50 Netherlands Luuk Mocking
51 Belgium Romeo Amirov
52 Switzerland Michael Steier
53 Finland Marko Laine
54 Norway Henrik Dahlgaard
55 Netherlands Marco
56 Switzerland Daniel Alvarez
57 Austria Wolfgang Eberhart
58 Hungary Peter Diamant
59 Portugal Carlos Coelho
60 Austria Ivelin Ivanov
61 France Sebastien Fayette
62 Belgium Kris Leppens
63 Austria Christoph Zeppetzauer
64 Belgium Stefan van de Wouwe

Adriaans in commanding position

Egi Adriaans with Dutch passport, but living in Belgium, is the outright chip leader when the tournament starts over after dinner. He sits with 81,000, but isn't pleased with that.
- I aim for another 19,000. Would be nice to pass six figures, he says.

Chip Leader Csibri and Doyle proud of EPEC

Katie Doyle is the Senior Global Events Coordinator at Everest Poker. So far, she couldn't be more pleased with the event as such. We also get a glimpse at the Hungarian chip leader just before the dinner brak, Tamás Csibri.

Dinner break

As always, Everest poker tries to make the most of a tournament. Tonight it is the Champions League final which most Europeans would hate to miss. Alas, they set the dinner break for two hours which enables all the football loving players to see the big match between Inter Milan and Bayern Münich. We'll be back at local time 22:00 (CET 23:00).

EPEC 2010 Team Challenge

Here is the Team Challenge classification at 19:45 GMT, when 53 of 184 are out:

Suovaara struggles

One of the Finnish players still in the tournament, Herman Suovaara, is struggling a little at the moment as he is down to 6,500.

Random chip counts

Jean-Marc Lojacono, France 34,000
Niels Aupperlee, Holland 23,000
Egi Adriaans Belgium 21,000
Alfonso Pipoli, Italy 19,000
David Munoz Sanz, Spain 18,000

Fast paced knock outs

Here are next bunch to hit the rail:

23 Switzerland Daniel Buhrer
24 Netherlands Johannes Franse
25 Spain Mikel Rollan Villacorta
26 Portugal Bruno Caldeira
27 Norway Jacob Lund
28 Poland Tomasz Szewczak
29 France David Denis
30 Spain Israel Vidal Lopez
31 the Netherlands Marcell Muller
32 Poland Pawel Jarzynski
33 Poland Pawel Kapalka
34 Poland Michal Zielinski
35 Belgium Ludovic Migeot
36 Spain David Munoz Sanz
37 Norway Knut Berntsen
38 Sweden Bobby Sjorgren
39 Italy Andrea Grella
40 Norway Bjorn Solheim
41 France Audrey Bernard
42 Hungary Gabor Budai
43 Portugal Renato Gomes
44 Spain Felix Gimenez
45 Norway Trond Sundby
46 Austria Hildegard Hruska
47 Sweden Daniel Roxbo

Bendaud doubles up

Karim Bendaud had a true dream flop when his QQ matched the Q-T-8 board. He bet out and his opponent, Zoltan Karpati from Hungary put him all-in. Bendaud insta-called of course and had to avoid a jack, since Karpati semi-bluffed with AK for a gut shot. The turn was a nine and river a four and Bendaud doubled up to 22,000. Karpati is down to 5,400.

EPEC 2010 Team Challenge

Here is the Team Challenge classification at 18:30 GMT, when we have 160 of 184 players playing:

Csibri in the lead

Hungarian player Tamás Csibri had a great start of Day 1 and is now up to 46,000. With that he is the chip leader so far here in Gran Canaria. Jean Marc Lojacano from France is also doing quite well, now on 36,000. Gael Seydoux from Switzerland is in the top ten on 23,000.

Ten more eliminations

As the blind levels increases, more and more players gets eliminated from the tournament. Here are the last ten casualties:

11 France Jerome Aufort
12 Sweden Hakan Skoglund
13 Austria Tobias Burtscher
14 Norway Stig Thomassen
15 Germany Jeffry Salaris
16 Finland Henri Pesola
17 Poland Szymon Bala
18 Finland Pauli Poikulainen
19 Poland Damian Baran
20 Denmark Morton Frandsen
21 Sweden Carl Johan Westerlund
22 Hungary Ferenc Meszaros

15 girls in the run

15 girls were among the starters today. Audrey Bernard from France is one of them and she is still just under starting stack for the day.

Rajaniemi eliminated

Petri Rajaniemi from Finland was the tenth player to be eliminated from EPEC 2010.

Renaud Baudenon

The French poker scene and Everest Poker is the favourite site of many Frenchmen. Renaud Baudenon is one of the 15 players from France that qualified to EPEC:

Renaud Baudenon

Rocio pleased with all at EPEC

Rocío van Nierop is Everest's Global Events Manager and she is very pleased with all the arrangements around EPEC 2010.

Nine players out

So far nine players have been eliminated.
David Näslund, Sweden
Matthias Schlegel, Germany
Emanuele Calcavecchia, Italy
Matthias Carlsson, Sweden
Adrian Krawczyk, Poland
Nicolas Degand, France
Marcus Recke, Germany
Fernando Joaquín Méndez, Spain
Andrzej Dziob, Poland

Alen Babic runs the Show

Alen Babic is a very experinenced tournament director. He is here in Gran Canaria to make sure everything runs smoothly.

All Seats are Taken

Player Out!

In one of the very first hands of the day, Swede David Näslund was eliminated from the tournament. Näslund had Ace-King against an opponents Ace-Ace. The AA player raises to 12 BB, 600, from cut-off, Näslund calls from button and big blind calls too. Flop came A, 8, 4 and there is a continuation overbet of 2,000, Näslund calls again. The turn is another eight, the AA player goes all-in for another 7,000 and Näslund feels a bit sick, but makes the call and is drawing dead. French player is of course chip leader on 20,000.

The EPEC Tournament has Started

With around 200 players seated, tournament director Alen Babic welcomed all to this amazing contest. Cards are in the air. Good luck to everyone!