EPT Monte Carlo Main Event Draws Large Field; Mazza Leads After Day 1b
The second of two starting flights of the 2019 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Main Event saw 561 players gather at the Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort. Together with the 342 that showed up for Day 1a, the field is already up to over 900 entrants with late registration open up until the start of Day 2. The total prize pool and payouts will be announced shortly after late registration has closed.
The sizable field is the third-biggest ever crowd for an EPT Monte Carlo Main Event and a sharp uptick in players compared to last year's total of 777. 239 out of 561 Day 1b hopefuls made it through to the second day, with Sylvain Mazza (288,700) finishing the day in pole position. It wasn't Mazza's first chip lead of the week: just yesterday, he finished 7th in the €1,100 French National Championship after coming into the final day as chip leader.
British poker icon Sam Grafton follows in second place with 259,800, followed by James Romero (235,000), who also made a deep run in the National, Rustam Hajiyev (217,400), Yazan Mdanat (200,400), and Emrah Cakmak (200,300).
Team PokerStars had several stars lined up for Day 1b and will keep being represented by Fatima Moreira de Melo (108,500), Celina Lin (46,800), and Kalidou Sow (45,000). Andre Akkari wasn't able to make it through the day. The Pokerstars ambassadors find themselves in good company with plenty of notables still in contention, such as Mike Watson (135,300), Kristen Bicknell (76,700), and Patrik Antonius (64,300), who made the final table in this event last year.
The Finnish poker legend caught up with PokerNews' Sasha Salinger during the day to talk about the recent festival that carried his name.
While all of the aforementioned players made it through, casualties were noted as well, including poker philanthropist Scott Wellenbach, Ole Schemion, David Peters, and Bryn Kenney, while defending champion Nicolas Dumont has not been spotted thus far.
All players who busted out are allowed a single re-entry, and those that haven't opted to use their second and final bullet yet can choose to do so up until the start of Day 2, which will be on Wednesday, May 1st at noon. The field will join together and blinds will resume in level 11 at 800/1,600 and a big blind ante of 1,600.
The Day 2 seat draw can be found here.
Keep following along with PokerNews live coverage of the 2019 EPT Monte Carlo as the Main Event moves one day closer towards crowning a new champion.
