Level six has just begun and there are two very familiar names at the top of the leaderboard. The Team PokerStars Pro duo of Lee Nelson and Luca Pagano have either side of 100,000 at this early stage: Nelson about 107,000 and Pagano 92,000.
Nelson goes by the nickname "Final Table" because - guess what! - he has a habit of making a great deal of final tables. But in Monte Carlo, it's really Pagano who knows all about making the final eight. His sixth-placed finish here last year went a long way to securing him the EPT Player of the Year honours, and also became his ninth EPT cash. He added another this year - a final table in Dortmund - and could well be challenging Nelson for that nickname pretty soon.
Speaking of final tables, Dennis Phillips knows something on that subject too. This time last year, he was just an account manager from a trucking firm in St Louis. But Phillips went to Vegas in the summer and took the World Series Main Event by storm, bludgeoning his way to the final table of the big dance with the chip lead. He eventually perished in fourth when the tournament reconvened in November, but he still took home a monstrous paycheck, and thereafter joined Pagano and Nelson on Team PokerStars Pro. And in the time it took to write that, he's joined the two of them in the upper reaches of this tournament's embryonic leaderboard as well.
Unfortunately for his fellow American Daniel Wallace, Phillips' rise coincided directly with Wallace's demise. It was aces against kings, a classic match up, ending with Wallace on the rail. The SuperNova Elite from Evansville, Indiana, found two prime hands within one orbit - and proving once again the fickleness of the poker gods, they cost him his tournament. On the first occasion, he had to lay down aces on a 9-10-J board when faced with a hefty check-raise. Then there came those kings and Phillips' aces. And that is the end of Wallace's debut on the EPT.
Phillips, meanwhile, has about 88,000.
