2015 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final

While the 2015 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final €10,600 Main Event was busy playing down to the final 16 players, the €25,000 High Roller was just kicking off. The single-reentry tournament, which played 10 one-hour levels, attract 160 unique entries that accounted for 40 reentries.

The total of 200 entries – which is a bit behind last year's 159 unique/55 reentries – is sure to go up even further as late registration and reentries are open up until the start of Day 2. One man who failed to make an appearance on Day 1, but could very well jump in at the last minute is Phil Ivey, who is holed up in Monaco.

As it is, 94 players survived the Day 1 flight with Steve O'Dwyer and his stack of 330,200 leading the way. Others who bagged big stacks were Tony Gregg (325,800), Max Altergott (311,100), and Matt Waxman (298,500), just to name a few.

O'Dwyer actually vaulted to the top of the chip counts in one of the last hands of the night, one that you can read by clicking here.

Of course not everyone was so lucky. Among those to fire two bullets Rono Lo, Justin Bonomo, Jeff Rossiter, Talal Shakerchi, Ivan Luca, Paul Newey, Simon Higgins, Daniel Dvoress, John Duthie, Max Silver, Benny Spindler, Benjamin Pollak, and Kyle Julius.

Julius actually busted his second bullet in Level 9 (600/1,200/200) when Altergott bet 8,400 on a board of with roughly 19,000 already in the pot. Bryn Kenney called and then Julius moved all in. Altergott thought for a few minutes before moving all in himself, leaving Kenney in a difficult position.

"It's so brutal, I have to see a board runout no matter what," said Kenney before calling off for roughly 100,000.

Altergott:
Julius:
Kenney:

Both the turn and river blanked, and Altergott scored the double knockout and vaulted into the chip lead.

While some big names fell, plenty made it through to Day 2 including Team PokerStars Pros Daniel Negreanu (182,000), Isaac Haxton (181,700), and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier (47,200) ; €100,000 Super High Roller champ Erik Seidel (149,100); Germans Martin Finger (153,200) and Igor Kurganov (149,000); and last year's runner-up Scott Seiver (177,700). As for last year's winner, Philipp Gruissem, he busted at the tail end of Level 10 and is expected to reenter before the start of Day 2, which will kick off at 12:30 p.m. local time on Thursday.

The plan tomorrow is to play either 10 more levels or down to the final eight players, whichever comes first. The PokerNews Live Reporting will be on hand to capture all the action, so be sure to check back then.

While you wait check out this behind-the-scenes video of Negreanu streaming on Twitch:

Donnie Peters and Remko Rinkema talk all things EPT Grand Final. Topics include Erik Seidel's big win in the €100,000 Super High Roller, Dzmitry Urbanovich's insane run, and Scott Seiver's excellence.

You can subscribe to the entire iBus Media Network on iTunes here, or you can access the RSS feed here. The PokerNews family of podcasts is now available on Stitcher.

When we arrived at the table, Steve O'Dwyer was all in for 95,200 on the flop. There was already a healthy amount of chips in the middle, and his opponent, David Dayan, was in the tank. After a little bit of thought, Dayan made the call.

"Ace high," announced O'Dwyer before turning up the for just ace high, as he stated.

Dayan tabled the and was ahead, but looking to dodge over cards and some other backdoor draws.

The turn was the to add a straight draw for O'Dwyer, and then the smacked down on the river to give him the winner. Finishing with a pair of queens, O'Dwyer, a former winner of the EPT Grand Final Main Event, won the pot and shot up over 300,000 in chips.

Dayan was clipped back to about 125,000.

Pratyush Buddiga bet 15,000 from under the gun on a board of , and Jason Koon called. Buddiga put enough in to set Koon all in on the river, and Koon snap-called for what looked to be less than 30,000.

Buddiga showed , but Koon had caught him on the river with .

Dzmitry Urbanovich three-bet from the small blind over a button raise from Ivan Luca and then called Luca's shove of about 50,000 with . Luca had and did not find any improvement.

The tournament staff just announced the remaining players will play three more hands before bagging and tagging for the night. We're headed out to the field to compile a list of chip counts and to capture any late action. Stay tuned for those and a full recap of the Day 1 action.

We just lost EPT founder John Duthie.

We missed the action, but we do know Duthie got his last chips all in on a flop and was at risk against Artur Koren.

Koren:
Duthie:

The turn changed nothing, but the river did as Koren made the nuts to eliminate the living legend.

Thomas Muehloecker moved all in for his last 19,800 from the hijack and Mike Watson three-bet all in over the top from the button. The blinds both folded and the cards were turned up.

Watson:
Muehloecker:

The board ran out and Watson scored the knockout with a pair of queens.