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Dutch poker pro Luuk Gieles is leading the EPT12 Prague €50k Super High Roller at the end of Day 1.
He bagged 1,025,000 after today's eight levels to top the 50-entry field (42 unique players + 8 re-entries). The 23-year-old's total live tournament results of $144k wouldn't necessarily mark him out as an EPT Super High Roller, however Gieles has a strong online background with Supernova Elite status on PokerStars where he's crushing it as "pokerkluka". His achievements there include a TCOOP title which he won back in January 2014 for $284k.
While Gieles might be relatively unknown on the EPT Super High Roller scene, there are plenty of regular faces in the overnight rankings with EPT10 Player of the Year Ole Schemion currently second on 752,000 and EPT12 Barcelona €50k Super High Roller Sylvain Loosli winner in third place - the Frenchman knocked out John Juanda in the last level of the day to soar up to 725,000.
Thomas Muehloecker was one of eight players who fired their second bullet today and turned it into 625,000 to come back with the fifth biggest stack tomorrow. The title defender Leonid Markin also re-entered today, but failed to gain traction and finished the day with only 76,500 - way under his 250k starting stack.
Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier is also among 33 survivors, although short-stacked with 96,000.
All players have a chance to enter - or re-enter - until the start of Day 2 and there's also a €5k last chance hyper turbo satellite running this evening, meaning today's survivors are certain to get more company when play resumes tomorrow.
EPT12 Prague €50k SHR Day 1 top five chip counts:
1st - Luuk Gieles, Netherlands, 1,020,000
2nd - Ole Schemion, Germany, 752,000
3rd - Sylvain Loosli, France, 725,000
4th - Igor Kurganov, Russia, 666,000
5th - Thomas Muehloecker, Austria, 652,000
EPT11 Prague €50k Super High Roller results:
1st - Leonid Markin, Russia, € 771,360
2nd - Paul Newey, UK, €557,090
3rd - Stephen Chidwick, UK, €355,070
4th - Juha Helppi, Finland, €269,360
5th - Ivan Soshnikov, Russia, €208,150
6th - Vladimir Troyanovskiy, Russia, €159,170
7th - Brian Roberts, USA, €128,565
The EPT 12 Prague Poker Festival features a record 97 tourneys at the Hilton Prague from December 5-16, as well as EPT-run cash games running round the clock. A record 185 tables will be in operation and a record 250 staff working the event.
