Yiannis Liperis Leads 134 Players From Day 1a of the €2,200 FPS High Roller at EPT Monte Carlo
Day 1a of the France Poker Series (FPS) €2,200 High Roller at the 2023 PokerStars European Poker Tour presented by Monte-Carlo Casino® has come to an end and Yiannis Liperis of Cyprus is the chip leader after nearly 15 hours of play.
The two concurrent opening flights drew a total of 1,234 entries, with Day 1b adding 326 entries to the Day 1a total of 908. The combined flights sent 182 players to Day 2, with 134 moving on from the first flight and 48 advancing from the second.
Liperis is the chip leader after a surge throughout the second half of the evening that sent him above 700,000 chips. He is followed by Mikhail Nikolaev in second with 670,000 and Florian Guimond in third with 620,000. Gerald Karlic and Ewen Trevidy round out the top five with 574,000 and 558,000, respectively.
2023 FPS €2,200 High Roller Day 1a Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Name | Country | Chips | Day 2 Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yiannis Liperis | Cyprus | 733,000 | 92 |
| 2 | Mikhail Nikolaev | Latvia | 670,000 | 84 |
| 3 | Florian Guimond | France | 620,000 | 78 |
| 4 | Gerald Karlic | Austria | 574,000 | 72 |
| 5 | Ewen Trevidy | France | 558,000 | 70 |
| 6 | Enrico Camosci | Italy | 530,000 | 66 |
| 7 | Juan Carlos Vecino | Spain | 496,000 | 62 |
| 8 | Ali Nikravesh | Iran | 479,000 | 60 |
| 9 | Georgi Abuladze | Estonia | 475,000 | 59 |
| 10 | Andreas Vlachos | Greece | 451,000 | 56 |
Day 1a Action
Among those qualifying for Day 2 was PokerStars Ambassador Benjamin “Spraggy” Spragg, who jumped in the opening flight after he bowed out of the €1,100 FPS Main Event in the early part of the day. Spragg will aim for his second cash of the series and a strong start to the year after four cashes at the PCA in January.
Other notables returning for their shot at the €2,369,280 ($2,636,257) prize pool include Enrico Camosci, Dominik Nitsche, Arnaud Enselme, Boris Kolev, and Harry Lodge.
The most furious action of the evening came on the stone bubble when three players got their stacks in with only one bust needed to end the night. Ilya Nikiforov was the first to go when his ace-queen fell to the pocket tens of Denis Malyshev on a board that ran out with only the low cards.
On an adjacent table, Davidi Kitai jammed with ace-jack, but Wei Jie Zheng was there to knock him out with pocket queens for the second knockout of the stone bubble. Meanwhile, Arthur Conan got his last 69,000 in with pocket kings, but Hirokazu Kobayashi tabled pocket tens and picked up two more on the board to eliminate Conan with quads. The three busts at the end of the night shifted the plan from 136 returning players to 134, and all of them will be in the money when they return tomorrow.
Players will return with around 35 minutes remaining in Level 18 with blinds at 4,000/8,000 with a 8,000 ante. The plan for tomorrow is to play down to a winner.
Be sure to keep it with the PokerNews team throughout the coming days for live updates from the floor of the 2023 EPT Monte Carlo at Sporting Monte-Carlo in beautiful Monaco.