Earlier today it was mentioned that due to the sheer number of late entries, the floor staff had had to bring in extra yellow 1k chips from a different set due to the 900+ players who entered today. During the last break when the 25 chips were being coloured up, the floor also introduced four orange 25k chips per table to exchange for as many of the 1k’s from the second set of chips as they could. Suddenly, the process of finding a chip leader became a lot harder when all they need is 12 chips…

Christophe De Meulder, still involved in the action

Elsewhere, Do Chung Tran looks like he may be the chip leader with about 450 players remaining. The German player just knocked out two players in one hand including EPT champion Salvatore Bonavena. A couple of hands later Tran dispatched Nikolay Yosifov, the Russian’s A♥ 8♣ no match for Tran’s K♥ K♠ both before and after a 9♥ 4♠ 8♥ 4♣ 10♥ board. Tran has roughly 240,000 which is nearly five times the average at this point, he’ll need at least 100,000 more to challenge Day 1a chip leader Berardino Palmieri. The last of the tables downstairs has been broken and everyone is finally in the same room.

Nearly 12 hours later and this room is still full

Day 1b of the IPT Malta Cup began a couple of hours ago and there was at least 338 players involved so far. Those playing included David Vamplew, Konstantin Puchkov and Madis Muur. Everyone playing this event has the opportunity to re-enter once and there will be a third starting day tomorrow night at 9pm. Last night, Giovanni Rizzo led the 33 survivors of Day 1a with 106,800, ahead of Vladislav Donchev (104,000). Rumen Nanev and Sofia Lovgren were among the other players to make it through to Day 2.

IPT Malta update:

– Less than 450 players remain on Day 1b
– The tournament will stop at the end of this level (12.15am CET)
– Team PokerStars Pro is being represented by Jan Heitmann, Christophe De Meulder and Matthias De Meulder

To get all the latest news, chip counts and payouts, don’t forget to download the EPT App on both Android or IOS. I’ve run out of funny reasons to tell you why you should download, just trust me, ok?

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