Day 1a of the PokerStars European Poker Tour Cyprus $5,300 Main Event, running at the Merit Royal Diamond Hotel and Spa, attracted 474 entries, a handful more than last year's event. Of those, 106 players made it through. The prize pool so far is $2,682,050, with the busiest flight, Day 1b, yet to come.
Nobody has ever won an EPT Main Event twice in a row. It's a feat that seems near-impossible and the only three double champions in history have had significant gaps between their victories. But this year it could just happen.
Of course, there's a long way to go, but reigning EPT Barcelona Main Event champion is back at the tables here in Cyprus and is sitting pretty on a top three stack at the end of Day 1a. Stephen Song took the chip lead early on when he hit trip queens to eliminate Ryan Mandara, then kept building his stack to over 200,000 and beyond, ending the day in third place with 261,500.
As the flight drew to a close, two players had edged in front of him. Ren Lin, who is as well known for his catchphrases and friendly demenour as he is for the nearly $12 million in live tournament winnings that he has already accrued, started winning pots early and then dodged a ton of outs to stack Mikhail Iakovlev during Level 8. Lin bagged in second second place for 264,000.
In the end though, it was Kirill Shcherbakov, a Russian player who has close to $750,000 in winnings, who topped the flight, bagging up 261,500 chips. Most of his winnings came from a second place finish at a poker series held at the Merit earlier this year. He's on a hot run, but Shcherbakov also showed plenty of skill when he dominated the table as the flight came to a close.
It's a tight race between the current leaders, with just a few thousand chips separating the top five.
Top Ten Day 1a Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kirill Shcherbakov | Russia | 284,000 |
| 2 | Ren Lin | USA | 264,500 |
| 3 | Stephen Song | USA | 261,500 |
| 4 | Yevhen Pavlenko | Ukraine | 253,000 |
| 5 | Ahmed Abdellatif | Australia | 249,000 |
| 6 | Sergei Varnaev | Russia | 248,500 |
| 7 | Ivan Zabiiakin | Russia | 233,000 |
| 8 | Fahredin Mustafov | Bulgaria | 222,000 |
| 9 | Rongshan Li | China | 215,000 |
| 10 | Artsiom Lasouski | Belarus | 210,000 |
Niklas Astedt, the world's number one ranked online player, finished just outside the top ten, bagging in 12th place with 186,000 chips.
Plenty of other notables also made it through, including PokerStars ambassadors Felix Schneiders (172,000), Sam Grafton (106,000), Barny Boatman (48,000), Kenny Hallaert (26,000) and Elias Gutierrez (23,000).
Others weren't so fortunate. Rania Nasreddine was among those to bust the flight. Incredibly, she has final tabled both the EPT Monte Carlo and EPT Barcelona so far this year. Nasreddine only fired one bullet during Day 1a in Cyprus, so expect to see her back in Day 1b looking to make it three final tables in a row.
Day 1b commences on Tuesday, October 15th at noon local time and is the final starting flight - the last opportunity for hopefuls to find a bag before Day 2 kicks off on Wednesday, October 16th at noon. Late registration remains open until the start of Day 2 and players can take a maximum of two entries across both flights.
Stay tuned to PokerNews for live coverage of the Main Event, with updates coming straight from the tournament floor as reporters follow the tournament all the way down to a winner.
