Toby "sadface11" Joyce Leads After Day 1 of the Arena Championship
After 15 levels and just over 8 hours of play, Day 1 is now complete for the opening event of 2020 PokerStars EPT Online. A total of 2,179 entries have been recorded so far, with just 622 left in play. At the top of the pack is Ireland's Toby "sadface11" Joyce with 4,336,056, the only player with more than 4 million chips.
Registration for this event is still open, and players can still buy in until the start of Day 2 play. When they resume in Level 16, blinds will be at 6K/12K/1.5K, which means that the 250K starting stack will be worth just over 20 big blinds for the first level of Day 2 play. While the prize pool for EPT Online 01: $1,050 NLHE [Arena Championship] has already surpassed the $1.5 million guarantee with more than $2 million in the kitty, there's still plenty of time for that to grow even larger.
Top Ten Stacks After Day 1
| Place | Player | Country | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Toby "sadface11" Joyce | Ireland | 4,336,056 |
| 2 | marlin5555 | Canada | 3,458,938 |
| 3 | machadinhaRS | Brazil | 3,305,384 |
| 4 | Michel "FreeLancerZZ" Dattani | Malta | 3,173,754 |
| 5 | Ilya "thienlao21" Korobkin | Ukraine | 3,098,288 |
| 6 | 99dm84 | Bosnia and Herzegovina | 3,050,582 |
| 7 | Barbarossa_7 | Austria | 3,040,644 |
| 8 | Artem "veeea" Vezhenkov | Russian Federation | 2,990,642 |
| 9 | serrazina11 | Malta | 2,949,886 |
| 10 | Andrey "ThePateychuk" Pateychuk | Russian Federation | 2,932,600 |
The Day's Action
Action on EPT Online 01: $1,050 NLHE [Arena Championship] got underway at 1:05 p.m. eastern time today, and it was clear from the start that it would be a success. More than 600 players were in their seats for the start of the event, and they'd already cleared the guarantee before the end of Level 6.
By the time they'd played the full 15 levels of Day 1, the field had topped out at 2,179 entries, putting the prize pool at $2,179,000. Entry is still open until Day 2 starts, so that is expected to grow even farther.
There was no luck today for the team from PokerStars. PokerStars Team Online members Ben "Spraggy" Spragg, Fintan "EasyWithAces" Hand, and Lex "L. Veldhuis" Veldhuis, as well as PokerStars Ambassador Ramon "RamonColillas" Colillas, all started the day with high hopes but all finished the tournament before the end of Day 1. Veldhuis made it the farthest, holding a decent stack through much of the day and even hitting a royal flush at one point, before falling in the final level.
PokerNews will be at the virtual felt watching all the action as this event plays down to a winner. Action on Day 2 resumes at 1:10 p.m. eastern time Monday, and they'll play down to 72 players remaining before stopping for the night. PokerNews will also have action from all the other events in the first ever 2020 PokerStars EPT Online, so stay tuned.