"I get the strange feeling that I've seen this before," said the EPT's foremost French reporter, Benjamin Gallen, staring at a stage full of scantily-clad cabaret dancers, testing the full flexibility of the narrow slivers of lycra stretched over only the most essential areas of their athletic frames*.
Yep, day 1b just started with a flurry of feathers, can-can and burlesque. It was remarkably similar to what we saw the day before, but no less eye-popping.
"In England, we call this deja vu," observed my PokerStars blog colleague, Stephen Bartley.
"Ah," nodded Gallen. "I'm not sure what it's called in France."
And with that moment of anglo-gallic aridity, the formalities were announced and day 1b began. And we've seen all this before as well. There are somewhere in the region of 300 players packed around 30-plus tables in the main function suite of Casino Hohensyburg. They've each parted with €5,000 (or its equivalent in PokerStars satellite winner's chips) and now they're all eyeing the EPT Dortmund season five crown, and the prize of close to a million euros.
Blinds, as ever, begin at 25-50 and the starting stacks are 10,000. The plan is to play eight one-hour levels, by which point we will almost certainly have lost more than half of those who began.
As ever, the field is packed with stars from the European and world game: Bertrand Grospellier and Dario Minieri are back from the world heads up tournament in Vegas; Luca Pagano, Noah Boeken and Katja Thater also wear the livery of Team PokerStars Pro. Oh, anyone heard of this kid Peter Eastgate? He's here too.
The former EPT winners Salvatore Bonavena, Julian Thew, Pascal Perrault and Michael Martin are also in attendance. And representing that most fearless and fearsome environment of the high-stakes online tables are, among others, Joe "ender555" Ebanks, Stephen "stevie444" Chidwick and Danny "THE_D_RY" Ryan.
Yep, we've seen it all before. But it doesn't get any less thrilling. Stay with us.
* That's the dancers' frames, not Gallen's.
