Welcome to the Penultimate Stop of Season 10... Welcome Back to Sanremo!
Welcome to the penultimate stop of Season 10 of the European Poker Tour. It’s been awhile since the EPT’s last visit to Sanremo, Italy, which came at the beginning of Season 9 back in October 2012. That season’s Main Event attracted 797 runners and was ultimately won by Ludovic Lacay; meanwhile, Benny Spindler took down that year’s High Roller.
This year’s Main Event is shaping up to be just as entertaining as numerous Team PokerStars Pros are set to attend including EPT6 champion Liv Boeree, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Vanessa Selbst, Angel Guillen and Jonathan Duhamel, Team Online's Marc-Andre “FrenchDawg” Ladouceur and Mickey “mement_mori” Petersen, and Friend of PokerStars Natalie Hof.
Additionally, at least 140 players have won seats to the EPT Sanremo Main Event including a bunch of EPT champions such as Anton Wigg, Michael Tureniec, Roberto Romanello, Frederik Jensen, Jannick Wrang, Kevin MacPhee, David Vamplew, Nicolas Chouity, Remi Castaignon and Julian Track as well as Aussie Millions champion Ami Barer. Other qualifiers include Martin Jacobson, Griffin Benger, Sam Chartier, Alex Bilokur, Adrian Mateos, Kitty Kuo, Stephen Chidwick, Jeffrey Hakim, Jude Ainsworth and Ole Schemion.
One storyline to keep an eye on throughout the EPT Sanremo is the EPT10 Player of the Year Race between Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Selbst, who currently sits second on the leaderboard, and Ole Schemion, who is in the lead. The 29-year-old American was runner-up in the EPT10 Sanremo €4,600 PLO event the other day, but since there were only 15 runners it was ineligible for POY points. Selbst missed last month’s EPT Vienna which allowed the German pro, who made the final of the EPT Vienna €2k event, to boost his lead by some 80 points. He now has 885 points, 120 points clear of Selbst. The EPT POY race will award a trophy and €50,000 in PokerStars live event tickets to the winner.
The Main Event is scheduled to kick off at Noon local time, which is about an hour from now. Who will add their name to this prestigious list of champions? We’ll find out in a week’s time.
Former EPT Sanremo Champions
| Season | Date | Buy-In | # of Players | Prize Pool | Winner | Top Prize |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | April 1-5, 2008 | €5,000 | 701 | €3,100,000 | Jason Mercier | €869,000 |
| 5 | April 18-23, 2009 | €5,300 | 1,178 | €5,713,300 | Constant Rijkenberg | €1,508,000 |
| 6 | April 15-21, 2010 | €5,300 | 1,240 | €6,014,000 | Liv Boeree | €1,250,000 |
| 7 | April 27-May 3, 2011 | €5,300 | 987 | €4,786,950 | Rupert Elder | €930,000 |
| 8 | October 21-27, 2011 | €4,900 | 837 | €3,734,694 | Andrey Pateychuk | €680,000 |
| 9 | October 6-12, 2012 | €5,300 | 797 | €3,865,450 | Ludovic Lacay | €744,910 |