End of Day 1a
The first day of EPT Deauville 2011 is officially done and dusted. 419 players took part today hoping that they would still be around in a week's time to contest the final table.
It was not a great day for the British players as PokerStars Team Pros Vicky Coren and John Duthie both made early exits, the former running the nut flush into a straight flush. We will also be crowning a new champion as Jake Cody was eliminated towards the end of the day in a massive four-way pot.
Indeed, it was to be the home nation that had all the fun today as Nicolas Babel, Bruno Launais, Julien Muel and former WSOP Main Event finalist Antoine Saout all had good days finishing well over the 100,000 mark. But the chip leader overall was Guillaume de la Gorce, the Frenchman finishing with 196,800 at the very top of the pile.
Tomorrow will see a whole host of new players including Team PokerStars Pros Liv Boeree, Arnaud Mattern and ElkY. Also, making his European debut under his real name will be Viktor "Isildur1" Blom while Daniel Negreanu has also shown up to hopefully repeat his good performance in Vienna.
We'll be back tomorrow at midday once more with all the action from Day 1b, see you then!