Steve O'Dwyer Leads Day 1; Gregg & Altergott Hot on His Heels
While the 2015 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final €10,600 Main Event was busy playing down to the final 16 players, the €25,000 High Roller was just kicking off. The single-reentry tournament, which played 10 one-hour levels, attract 160 unique entries that accounted for 40 reentries.
The total of 200 entries – which is a bit behind last year's 159 unique/55 reentries – is sure to go up even further as late registration and reentries are open up until the start of Day 2. One man who failed to make an appearance on Day 1, but could very well jump in at the last minute is Phil Ivey, who is holed up in Monaco.
As it is, 94 players survived the Day 1 flight with Steve O'Dwyer and his stack of 330,200 leading the way. Others who bagged big stacks were Tony Gregg (325,800), Max Altergott (311,100), and Matt Waxman (298,500), just to name a few.
O'Dwyer actually vaulted to the top of the chip counts in one of the last hands of the night, one that you can read by clicking here.
Of course not everyone was so lucky. Among those to fire two bullets Rono Lo, Justin Bonomo, Jeff Rossiter, Talal Shakerchi, Ivan Luca, Paul Newey, Simon Higgins, Daniel Dvoress, John Duthie, Max Silver, Benny Spindler, Benjamin Pollak, and Kyle Julius.
Julius actually busted his second bullet in Level 9 (600/1,200/200) when Altergott bet 8,400 on a board of 
with roughly 19,000 already in the pot. Bryn Kenney called and then Julius moved all in. Altergott thought for a few minutes before moving all in himself, leaving Kenney in a difficult position.
"It's so brutal, I have to see a board runout no matter what," said Kenney before calling off for roughly 100,000.
Altergott: 
Julius: 
Kenney: 
Both the turn and river blanked, and Altergott scored the double knockout and vaulted into the chip lead.
While some big names fell, plenty made it through to Day 2 including Team PokerStars Pros Daniel Negreanu (182,000), Isaac Haxton (181,700), and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier (47,200) ; €100,000 Super High Roller champ Erik Seidel (149,100); Germans Martin Finger (153,200) and Igor Kurganov (149,000); and last year's runner-up Scott Seiver (177,700). As for last year's winner, Philipp Gruissem, he busted at the tail end of Level 10 and is expected to reenter before the start of Day 2, which will kick off at 12:30 p.m. local time on Thursday.
The plan tomorrow is to play either 10 more levels or down to the final eight players, whichever comes first. The PokerNews Live Reporting will be on hand to capture all the action, so be sure to check back then.
While you wait check out this behind-the-scenes video of Negreanu streaming on Twitch: