There are only 4 levels left in the official EPT structure so we expect they will be rolled back at some point, most likely once it is down to 8 players.
We've just been talking to Frenchman Thomas Fougeron outside on the balcony. Amazingly his comeback from 2 big blinds on day 1b to being within earshot of the final table is not his biggest comeback. "In France, I came back from one ante to win a winner takes all single table tournament, we were down to 4 players and I offered them a deal at the time".
Thomas is very optimistic today and says that any result from this point on is good "when I got back to 9000 from 600, the average stack for 20000, for most people this would be bad, but I felt very good, very confident".
I suggested to Thomas that maybe he should aim to start every tournament from so far behind in the future.
Jacob Rasmussen (Denmark) 657,000
Philip Yeh (Sweden) 597,000
Sebastian Ruthenberg (Germany) 537,000
Michael Muecklisch (Germany) 440,000
Gunnar Rabe (Sweden) 431,000
Cristiano Blanco (Italy) 424,000
Nicolas Levi (France) 365,000
Johnny Lodden (Norway) 360,000
Andreas Hoivold (Norway) 335,000
Vincent Sokalski (USA) 278,000
Erik Lindberg (Sweden) 236,000
Thomas Fougeron (France) 192,000
Christoph Stiehler (Germany) 182,000
Play is due to start at about 3PM today. We are told the final table will go live at 5PM but my guess is that this is a bit optomistic. Either way we will be bringing you up to the minute reports from the final days play.
2 of our remaining 13 players who are now playing for thousands upon thousands of Euros qualfied for this event using Frequent Player Points (FFPs) on Pokerstars. Micheal Muecklisch and Sebastian Ruthernberg are both here essentially for free.
Now, as I am about to get my hands on a High Definition TV myself using the FFPs I have accrued on Pokerstars, I certainly am an advocate of this superb reward system (although I may have lost the equivalent of 16 TVs while accumulating the points). Its not just about T-Shirts and baseball caps, should one of these guys go on to win expect the FFP games to become very popular.