It was a fitting way to end a magnificent event: two aggressive players playing for a first prize of €595,839. Both the Englishman William Fry and Ciprian Hrisca from Romania may have shared a friendly glass of wine before the heads-up began, but once the glasses were drained the gloves...more

Play is under way in the final of the EPT Budapest. These are the updates for level 26, where the blinds are 20,000-40,000 with a running 4,000 ante. The PokerStars blog will provide level by level updates. 5.45pm: William Fry, UK, PokerStars player, wins EPT Budapest, earning €595,839 Ciprian Hrisca,...more

Play is under way in the final of the EPT Budapest. These are the updates for level 25, where the blinds are 15,000-30,000 with a running 2,000 ante. The PokerStars blog will provide level by level updates. 5.30pm: Double up for Fry All the chips go in pre-flop, with Fry's...more

Play is under way in the final of the EPT Budapest. These are the updates for level 24, where the blinds are 15,000-30,000 with a running 2,000 ante. The PokerStars blog will provide level by level updates. 3.53pm: Albert Iversen from Denmark, eliminated in fourth place for €153,216 Albert Iversen...more

Play is under way in the final of the EPT Budapest. These are the updates for level 23, where the blinds are 10,000-20,000 with a running 2,000 ante. The PokerStars blog will provide level by level updates. 2.15pm: Zoltan Toth of Hungary is eliminated in seventh place for €78,736 Gino...more

After four days, 532 players, 23 levels and 524 eliminations it’s come to this, the final table of the first ever EPT Budapest. The success of the finalist is only matched by the success of this event in general. No one knew what to expect when they arrived in Hungary...more

The corridor between the tournament area and the press room at the Las Vegas Casino, Budapest, is going to need recarpeting at the end of this week. On a day of startling activity at EPT Budapest, the returning day three field of 42 players was trimmed to the final nine...more

The eliminations have come thick and fast today as we edge closer to discovering the eight who will comprise tomorrow's final table. The official counts of the last 13 are on our chip counts page, and we'll be reverting to our time-stamped reporting style from here until the final is...more

It’s a sensation just experienced by Christophe Haller, who tussled with PokerStars qualifier Johnny Lodden and came out of it, well, out. Lodden held K-T and found two more on the board, taking the event down to 15 players. Then came the end of Casey Kastle’s tournament. Kastle, an...more

Robin Keston moved all-in and whilst Marino Serenelli eliminated another player two tables along, Keston waited for a call, got one and doubled up with pocket eights. But the big news for PokerStars is Johnny Lodden’s progress, a near double up that saw him take a big haul from...more

The field has reduced to 19 players on three tables, and flops are increasingly scarce. It's possible to stand somewhere in the middle of the three of them for 15 minutes at a stretch without seeing any cards face up. The usual drill goes raise, re-raise, fold, fold, fold, etc.,...more

It’s Halloween and William Fry is proving hard to kill, if you’ll excuse the expression. In a remarkable turnaround Fry, who came out on the wrong end of a hand with Romanian Ciprian Hrisca a short while ago, has now bounced back to the tune of 250,000 – a...more

It marks the last of the Team PokerStars Pros. Alex Kravchenko’s attack on an EPT title just ended on the last hand before the break. Short stacked after some earlier clashes brought him back from the heights of 220,000 earlier today. It was a case of threes against nines...more

Table one has rapidly become the table of certain death here today. Dave Hardy, Dwayne Stacey, Brice Cournut, George McKeever, Robert Firestone and Mauro Corsetti have all sat there for at least a couple of hands today, but are now walking the streets of Budapest and out of this tournament....more

As the blinds go up and the players drop out this is the time for critical hands and bigger pots. It’ll be like this all the way through to the final but the latest example featured PokerStars qualifier William Fry and the player to his immediate left Ciprian Hrisca...more

With Szabolcs Saskoy gone from the Kravchenko table his seat is filled by PokerStars sponsored player Johnny Lodden after his table is broken and it’s not long before the Norwegian is raising, 14,000 pre-flop from the button, getting called by Kravchenko. On the Td-8c-Ad flop Lodden bets again, another...more

One of the more notable players for much of two days here in Budapest was the Italian Mauro Corsetti, who was an early chip leader on day 1b and was top of the pile when the fields merged for day 2. He was hauled back to the middle of the...more

The day three draw has provided its usual array of interesting match-ups, none more so than the positioning of the overnight chip leader Albert Iversen beside the overnight micro-stack George McKeever. And it all ended somewhat predictably for McKeever moments ago, when he founnd a hand in his shoving range...more

This is the sharp end, crunch time. You can use whatever well worn phrase you like to describe today as long as it expresses that critical sense of urgency as the money begins to increase and the number of survivors does the opposite in the EPT Budapest. Today we...more

Typically day two of a major poker tournament is when the most moves are made, the chips fly in huge flocks from one player to another, and plenty of dreams die. Where there are winners, there must be losers, where there's fortune there's misfortune and where there are headline makers,...more