2014 PokerStars.com EPT Season 11 Prague

After eight levels of 75 minutes each, the tournament screens in the Hilton Hotel in Prague showed 342 entrants for the first starting day of the €5,300 Main Event from the 2014 European Poker Tour Prague festival. Leading the field after a close race towards the finish line was Dmitry Ponomarev with 159,800 chips. There are 201 players remaining from this flight.

The Russian Ponomarev has $226,392 in live tournament cashes with his biggest score coming off a first-place finish in a $2,200 side event at the 2014 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure for $117,580. He was closely followed on the leaderboard by 2014 EPT Vienna champion Oleksii Khoroshenin (150,500), Brian Altman (150,300), and Morten Christensen (143,800). Igor Pihela Sr. won his entry to the €50,000 Super High Roller in a satellite and his son, Pihela Jr., did so for the Main Event. The younger of the two bagged up 131,500 chips on Day 1a.

Other notables with big stacks include Petr Jelinek (137,100), Jean-Philippe Piquette (128,000), Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden (117,700), Shannon Shorr (101,700), Sam Greenwood (90,600), former EPT Barcelona €10,300 High Roller champion Thomas Muhlocker (86,000), and Anton Wigg (72,000). Two other Team PokerStars Pros made it through as well, with 2014 World Series of Poker Player of the Year George Danzer bagging up 40,100 and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier finishing with 38,100. Team PokerStars Pro Online's Isaac Haxton (60,000) and Mickey Petersen (29,100) bagged up chips as well.

Fellow Team Pros Martin Hruby and Chris Moneymaker didn't make it through, unfortunately, with Moneymaker failing to improve with the against the . Furthermore, it proved to be a rough day for former EPT champions such as Mikalai Pobal, Kevin Stani, Antonio Buonanno, Sebastian Pauli, Mike McDonald, Zimnan Ziyard, Tom Middleton, and David Vamplew. They all fell before the end of play.

Similar fates were had by Jonathan Little, Dominik Nitsche, Joni Jouhkimainen, Fabrice Soulier, Marvin Rettenmaier, Adrian Mateos, David Peters, Christopher Brammer, and Pierre Neuville. Reigning PCA champion Dominik Panka was very active early on, but the his roller coaster of a day ended before the dinner break.

Finally, it was a day to celebrate for Russia. Leonid Markin defeated Paul Newey in the €50,000 Super High Roller to win the title, and you can read more about that here.

The PokerNews will be back tomorrow at 12:00 CET for Day 1b of the Main Event where players will still be allowed to buy in until the start of Day 2 on Saturday. The magic number to beat for EPT Prague will be 1,007 entries, which came in 2013 when Julian Track emerged victorious and claimed a payday of €725,700.

While you wait for Day 1b's action to start, check out this video with Danzer where he discusses his WSOP Player of the Year win with Remko Rinkema:

Anton Wigg got involved in a preflop raising war and ended up all in for 32,500 with  . His opponent had   and the board ran out in favor of the Swede with     .

Marc Daubach lost 20,000 chips with pocket queens against pocket kings and is dwindling down to starting stack once again. Fedor Holz is on the rise and another big stack is Candido Goncalves. The Frenchman defended his big blind in a battle of the blinds and called a bet of 2,300 on the    flop. The turn was checked and the player in the small blind then avoided a showdown by betting the river.

Johnney Lodden and Nikita Nikolaev had reached the river of a board showing and Lodden had bet 25,000 which was close to a pot sized bet.

Nikolaev took some time to decide what to do as it represented close to half his remaining stack. He did make the call though but slid his cards forward unseen as Lodden turned over his .

A raise to 1,300 from under the gun saw Johnny Lodden make the call. The dealer scooped up seat one’s cards who suddenly noticed he had no cards in front of him and he hadn’t even seen them. He was rather put out, but another player reminded him that it was his responsibility to protect his hand.

Florence Allera called in the small blind and the big blind came along as well.

Four players saw a flop of and it was checked around. On the turn card Allera led out for 3,000 and it was just Lodden who put in the calling chips. The river card saw Allera strike a thoughtful pose and throw out a bet of 8,000.

Lodden twirled his cards around on the table beneath his fingers. Allera has a tight image, Lodden knew this, but then surely so did Allera. Was this the time to use that image to make Lodden lay down a hand? You could see Lodden going through all sorts of calculations but in the end Lodden flicked his cards away.

“This one time.” Allera said and turned her cards over for the table to see: for quads. Lodden nodded and Allera turned to the player who had his cards taken by the dealer and said, “You could have had a jack.”

The media cards of Zimnan Ziyard and Mike McDonald were already waiting on the desk and David Vamplew followed next. He was all in for 9,600 chips with   against the   of Elie El Feghali. The board was already rushed away, but there was a king on the flop that sent Vamplew to the rail.

Morten Mortensen raised from the button and Luca Giovannone three-bet to 8,000 from the small blind with a total stack of 16,000. Mortensen moved all in and it was a flip for the Dane with   versus  . The board ran out     and the final community card awarded the pot to Mortensen.

One hand later the Dane flat-called a raise by Oscar Kroon for 1,300 and called a continuation bet on the    flop for 1,600. Kroon check-called the 3,600-bet of Mortensen after the turn and the on the river was checked down. Kroon showed   but Mortensen had that beat with  .