Unlike in other events this season, those watching today kind of knew that this final table would be a long one. The reasons were obvious. For a start the days in Campione begin at 2pm rather than 12pm, but aside from this obvious logic (and that most final tables...more

Tournament director Teresa Nousiainen stood next to the final table announcing the introduction of the black and green 100,000 chip. Her information seemed to be largely ignored by the rail, which contained the likes of Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier, Eugene Katchalov, Cathy Hong, Roberto Romanello and several of the remaining players'...more

Olivier 'adonis112' Busquet has looked unflappable for the last week but is he starting to wobble under this late pressure? He twice made raises the last level that he's expressed dismay over after the hand had finished. Both were three-bets, both hands finished with him passing chips across the table....more

End of day reports on the European Poker Tour are normally written late at night, in darkness, with the food gone, the bar closing and the debris of the day; beer bottles, plastic cups, sandwich crusts and ex-boyfriends, strewn across the floor, cast aside by players who also had...more

The EPT has been ground-breaking in many ways but, in terms of spectators, none more so than with the live stream. Other tours and events have followed in its footsteps but the James Hartigan-fronted show continues to be the best around. EPT Live Lite, as introduced at Deauville earlier this...more

The first level of play marked the departure of one of the last of this week's over-achievers; Panagiotis Gavriulidis. Gavriulidis was something of a tournament gorilla this week, approaching poker with the finesse of an cave man hammering a mammoth into shape. If his hand didn't fit a scenario...more

The plan was to play down to 24. Then, like responsible parents curtailing playtime, it was decided to play six levels and call it a night. Then, like an irresponsible parent, they were allowed to play on until 24, and that meant a late finish. Then it was decided...more

Poker is a game of incomplete information. If I was to tell you that Jannick Wrang had finished 9th on the MicroMillions leader board (he did) then you might think of him as a low stakes grinder with unrealised potential. Wrang, who qualified for this tournament on PokerStars, is currently...more

He's held the chip lead today, now, after a hand just before the dinner break, has slipped to third. But Koen de Visscher remains one of the major contenders. "In the beginning of the day I was pretty short and I kept being short on the bubble and then...more

If Day 1 introduces the players, Day 2 introduces the likely winners. As the dust settled on another six levels (there really was dust, stoked up by the television people rigging up the set for later this week), a handful of players had separated from the pack to look...more

We should all hate Patrik Antonius. It's true. There's enough envy in poker to wallpaper his house and line the cat tray for years. He's the type of player you can forgive players for finding insufferable, the type of person that, in moments of low self-esteem, usually about five...more

Eat food, play poker. This is a bad combination. After chowing down on a big dinner your body's blood glucose drops following the insulin secretion caused by your gut's reaction to the glucose in the food. That's the science, here's the result. You get lethargic. Trying to play poker, let...more

Not unlike its predecessor, Day 1B was not much on drama today. Well, not for the first hour at least. That's when Ilan Boujenah came to life. Agitated by what he deemed to be the unsporting actions of an opponent acting before him, Boujenah, who reached the final table...more

The numbers have been crunched and the beads of the abacus have been flicked back and forth. We have the all-important final numbers for the first ever EPT Campione. The prize pool comes in at *drumroll* €2,764,500 and the winner will take home *more dramatic drumroll* €640,000. In all some...more

The impeccably dressed Faraz Jaka is among the Day 1B field. What with his violet check shirt, neat trousers and elegant shoes, Jaka single-handedly raises the bar on sartorial standards among poker players, with the possible exception of that guy in the blue sequined hat and orthopaedic shoes. Even...more

Campione is a quiet town and today was a quiet day. The European Poker Tour didn't exactly shout its arrival in this tiny Italian enclave, it simply invited itself in, promising to be good and not cause any trouble. There was no drama, no yelling, no histrionics, just eight...more

There's an unusual level of quiet across these late stages of Day 1A. It's really quite odd. I've conferred with some colleagues, they agree it's quite peculiar. Here we are in Italy surrounded by passionate players and yet things feel calmer than ice-cold Copenhagen. It's almost... supernatural. I can't place...more

Nick Yunis has been throwing his chips about a bit. As I approached his table to watch I was stopped by a member of the media who stepped in front of me, as if to warn me of some kind of danger ahead. "Nick Yunis is playing every hand,"...more