Will The EPT Crown It's First Two-Time Winner?
At the moment there are 313 people registered for Day 1B. Combined with the 175 who played yesterday, that makes for a field of 488 so far. Though that number will grow as people are able to register up till the start of the day tomorrow, it makes for a quite small field.
There are clear downsides to this as the eventual winner will receive a much smaller prize than the victor got here the last couple of years. The positive thing is that the winner won't have to beat as many people to grab the title.
There were a bunch of former EPT winners playing yesterday including Dominik Panka (35,700), Jannick Wrang (out), Julian Track (97,300), Michael Eiler (out) and Oleksii Khoroshenin (out), who were all gunning for their second title.
Here on Day 1B there are even more former champions in the field. We saw the following players who have EPT titles to their credit, though there might even be more:
Mikalai Pobal (Barcelona 2012), Dimitar Danchev (PCA 2013), Kevin MacPhee (Berlin 2010), Frederik Jensen (Madrid 2012), Remi Castaignon (Deauville 2013), Salvatore Bonavena (Prague 2008), Anton Wigg (Copenhagen 2010), Michael Tureniec (Copenhagen 2011), Roberto Romanello (Prague 2010), Zimnan Ziyard (Loutraki, 2011), Vicky Coren (London 2006), David Vamplew (London 2010), Liv Boeree (Sanremo 2010), Nicolas Chouity (Monte Carlo 2010), Ludovic Lacay (Sanremo 2012), Mickey Petersen (Copenhagen 2012), and Robin Ylitalo (London 2013).
Will this mark the first time the EPT is able to crown it's first two-time winner? Time will tell, but chances are better than ever!