Tiberu-Florian Georgescu & Ari Engel Thrive on Day 1a
On Thursday, the European Poker Tour visited Prague – the largest city in the Czech Republic – for the seventh time. Season 10’s incarnation attracted 389 players to the Day 1a flight, but only 210 of them survived the night.
After eight 75 minutes of play, it was Tiberu-Florian Georgescu who emerged as the chip leader with 191,000, though he’s got some stiff competition nipping at his heels in Ari Engel (172,800), Ronny Voth (166,400), and Sebastian Saffari (162,000).
The Prague stop has gotten so popular that for the first time ever the tournament area spilled out of the Hilton Prague’s Congress Hall into the attached lobby area. All told 90 poker tables, 200,000 poker chips, 10,000 player cards and 500m of electrical cabling were used to bring the EPT Prague to life.
In addition, there were plenty of side activities complimenting the Main Event in Day 1a including ice skating, "Time Freeze" technology, a Eureka Poker Tour final table, a Skrill Last Longer Competition, and a big win by tennis star Rafael Nadal in a charity event.
While all of that was entertaining, all eyes were trained on the Main Event, which was full of some notable hands. One took place in Level 4 (100/200/25) on a board reading 
. A player in the big blind bet 3,000 and was met by an all-in three-bet of 11,000 or so by Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden. His opponent made the call with the 
for a rivered full house, which bested the 
straight of Lodden, who became the first Team Pro to fall on Day 1a.
Of course he wasn't the last to go. Among those to fall were Season 7 EPT Prague champ Roberto Romanello; Friend of PokerStars Pierre Neuville; EPT10 Player of the Year contender Kenny Hallaert; Australian Jeff Rossiter; the consistent Dan Kelly; Team PokerStars Pro Jake Cody; UK gentleman John Eames; Tim Reilly, who failed to make Day 2 in an EPT Main Event for the first time ever; and Vanessa Selbst, who was fresh off winning the EPT Prague PLO Championship for €107,000.
According to Walid Habib (and the masseuse that was working on him), someone had raised in Level 8 (300/600/75) and Selbst shoved her last 15 big blinds in. Another player woke up with nines behind and made the call. The original raiser folded, Selbst turned over the 
, and the board blanked. With that, Selbst took her leave in the last level of the night.
While many fell, plenty of notables advanced to Day 2 including Anaras Alekberovas (115,600), Jonathan Little (104,200), Darren Elias (97,200), Michael Tureniec (70,300), Kent Lundmark (67,100), Steve O’Dwyer (60,200), Toby Lewis (44,900), David Boyaciyan (40,500), Shannon Shorr (40,400) and Juha Helppi (34,400).
On Friday, a whole new batch of players will take to the felt in Day 1b action, which kicks off at Noon local time. Of course the PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be on hand to bring you all the action and eliminations from the tournament floor.