Things are heating up at Prague as the 2011 PokerStars European Poker Tour has just kicked in, with the 2011 World Poker Tour just around the corner. At the European Poker Tour, day 1 saw a total of 234 players, but right at the end of the day, only 140 players will be moving on forward on to the next day. On the lead in terms of chip holdings is Vedzizhev Beslan, with a total of 132,200 chips overall.
Famous Faces
There were a number of prominent faces that participated at the tables during day 1 of the 2011 European Poker Tour at Prague. Among these were Team PokerStars Pro Toni Judet, Fatima Moreira de Melo, Rino Mathis, Pat Pezzin, Theo Jorgensen, Richard Toth, Marcin Horecki, Martin Staszko, and Michael Keiner. Things are looking good for Team PokerStars Pro as only a couple of them did not make it past day 1a, Judet and Horecki. Other notables who took part in day 1a were Gus Hansen, Steve O’Dwyer, James Akenhead, Mike Watson, Chris Moorman, Eoghan O’Dea, and Muchael Benvenuti, who all did pretty well and survived day 1 of the event.
O’Dea’s Bumpy Ride
At one point, O’Dea had a bit of trouble when he went against Raggaele Gerbi. Although O’Dea had a pretty strong straight with him, his opponent, Gerbi, managed to get a full house once the river hit, which severely crippled O’Dea’s chip count. Later on, O’Dea managed to double up however. It was when O’Dea went all out against Christopher Brammer. Brammer was already holding a pretty nice K-J, both being clubs. One the other hand, O’Dea had A-Q, both diamonds. The flop read Q, 9 and 2, which gave O’Dea a pair, Brammer with nothing. The turn and river proved to be of help to neither player as they were 9 and 7 respectively. O’Dea then ended up with just a little over 50k.
The Return of Gus Hansen
There is no doubt that Gus Hansen was among the players the spotlight focused on during day 1. After a long time of absence on the poker radar, Gus Hansen has finally made a comeback. While Hansen is pretty known for playing loosely in a number of tournaments and some cash games, Hansen on day 1 of the European Poker Tour playing it tight and even managed to end up with a pretty nice 52,600 chips right at the end of the day.
