Islamay Tops the Pack of EPT Sanremo
Day 1a of the 2012 PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Sanremo Main Event has come to a close with the first flight running through eight 75-minute levels of play. It was a long day on the felt, but one that was filled with plenty of action. Front and center for much of the chip exchanging was Erion Islamay. He finished on 162,300 and has assumed the position of early chip leader.
The first starting flight peaked at 320 players, which meant for quite the crowded tournament space at Casino Sanremo. Scattered in amongst the tables were plenty of top pros including those representing the host PokerStars. Jonathan Duhamel and Marcin Horecki were two of the Team PokerStars Pros in action on Day 1a, but both of them failed to advance.
Duhamel fell to Walid Bou-Habib after losing a flip for his tournament life in the last level of the night. Duhamel was all in preflop with the 
and up against the 
for Bou-Habib. The flop, turn and river of 
kept Bou-Habib's sevens in the lead, and Duhamel was eliminated.
Not only was the end of the night cruel to Duhamel, but also Scott Seiver. His elimination was a bit more brutal than Duhamel's as Seiver got his money in on the 
board with the 
versus his opponent's 
. All Seiver needed to do was dodge an eight or a queen in order to stay alive, but the 
smacked on the river and that was it.
Other notables eliminated throughout Day 1a were Shannon Shorr, Dominik Nitsche, Ilan Boujenah, Arnaud Mattern, Joao Barbosa, Mohsin Charania and Anton Wigg.
On the other side of the coin, Michael Ferrell (146,600), Matt Salsberg (135,200), Mustapha Kanit (120,600), David Peters (111,400) and Lorenzo Sabato (109,500) were a few of the notables to bag up bunches of chips. They'll be back for Day 2 on Sunday along with Team PokerStars Pros Victor Ramdin, Jude Ainsworth, Ana Marquez and Jason Mercier.
Under 200 players remained at the end of the day, but they've all made it to Sunday's Day 2. Tomorrow, Day 1b will take place with the action kicking off at 2:00 PM local time. PokerNews will see you back here then.