Andrulis Leads Day 1a
After eight levels, Day 1a of Season 8 EPT Deauville has come to an end. Roughly 220 players remain from the 339 that began the day and on top of the counts is Kristijonas Andrulis. He bagged up a stack of 162,600 and is followed by Philippe Ma (162,200) and Elie Payan (141,800). Also returning on Thursday's Day 2 will be James Dempsey (50,900), Paul Berende (40,100) and Kara Scott (38,200). Surviving Day 1a for Team PokerStars were Henrique Pinho, Marcin Horecki, and France's own Arnaud Mattern.
Team PokerStars Pro Jonathan Duhamel hit the rail at the end of Level 6. Two consecutive hands saw Duhamel go from a 108-big-blind stack to zero. First, he ran 
into Fabrice Gouget's 
. The following hand extended into the break as Duhamel got his chips into the middle with 
with the board reading 
. Pierre Canali looked him up with 
and dodged Duhamel's many outs when the 
river missed Duhamel.
Others that did not survive Day 1a include last year's runner-up Martin Jacobson, Constant Rijkenberg, Shaun Deeb, Sam Chartier, Mathew Frankland, Jan Collado, Adrien Allain and Jon Spinks.
Day 1b will commence tomorrow at noon, so be sure to keep it here at PokerNews for all of the exciting action. Until then, good night from Deauville!