MAR 03 2010

Kfir Yumin leads field at EPT Berlin

Israeli player Kfir Yumin was some 50,000 ahead of his nearest rival - with a comfortable total of 213,500 - as Day 1a drew to a close at EPT Berlin. In second place is PokerStars qualifier Rachid Ben Cherif from the Netherlands with 163,800.

A total of 196 players made it through the nine levels of Day 1a from a giant starting field of 389. All have their eyes on the guaranteed first prize of €1 million.

A clutch of Team PokerStars Pros are among the survivors with popular German player George Danzer bagging up 132,400. He’ll be back on Thursday for Day 2 along with fellow team-mates Sebastian Ruthenberg, Benjamin Kang, Katja Thater, Michael Keiner and Johannes Steindl as well as Vicky Coren from the UK and Vlad Zguba from the Ukraine.

The €5,300 five-day event – the first EPT to take place in the German capital – is being held in the luxurious Grand Hyatt Hotel on Marlene Dietrich Platz in partnership with Casino Spielbank Berlin.

The Hyatt’s Grand Ballroom – which seemed pretty full for Day 1a – will be even more packed for Day 1b. More than 450 players are expected, including tennis legend Boris Becker and field hockey pro Fatima de Melo – both members of PokerStars SportStar – as well as actress Charlotte Roche who is being sponsored by PokerStars.

Ziad Alameddine, who took down the charity event at the new PokerStars.net North American Poker Tour Venetian event last week, is also competing on Day 1b after winning his seat on PokerStars. He’ll be joined by fellow American and PokerStars qualfier David Paredes who came fifth in the NAPT Main Event for $184,816.

A slew of pros from Team PokerStars Pro will also be fighting their corner on Day 1b including Jude Ainsworth, William Thorson, Juan Maceiras, Thierry Van Den Berg, Lex Veldhuis, Johnny Lodden, Noah Boeken, Julian Thew, Luca Pagano, Marcel Luske and Vadim Markushevski.

Flying the flag for the Team PokerStars Pro Germany will be Florian Langmann, Jan Heitmann, Rino Mathis, Anton Alleman and Johannes Strassman – as well as last year’s EPT Dortmund winner Sandra Naujoks.