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After Day 1A of the European Poker Tour (EPT) Sanremo Main Event, we surmised that it would effectively take an act of god for the tournament to end up with a larger field than it did last year. There was no brilliance in this estimation, but still, we were right. It’s not even going to come close. The 381 players that signed up for the €4,900 Main Event on Day 1B brought the two flight total to 556. Not bad, but not within shouting distance of last year’s 797. The tournament will still accept late registrations up until the beginning of today’s Day 2, but late registrations usually tack on only a handful of players and shouldn’t make too much of a difference.

That all said, it’s still a large tournament as far as poker tournaments go and emerging from Day 1B as the chip leader was David “MissOracle” Yan with 179,100 chips, a sum that also easily makes him the overall leader. In fact, the top three players from Day 1B – Yan, Andrey Lobzhanidze (172,800 chips), and Pierluigi Giglio (163,800) – all have more than Day 1A’s leader, Cristiano Guerra (148,700).

Yan, a New Zealander, is hunting for his first live tournament victory, major event or otherwise. He has earned nearly $600,000 in live tourney earnings in his career, according to TheHendonMob.com, with his best cash coming in last year’s Aussie Millions Main Event, where he placed sixth for $232,254. He has had success online, as well, currently ranking 793rd in the PocketFives worldwide online tournament rankings, with a high water mark of 413th. He has won over $400,000 in virtual tournaments and has achieved SuperNova Elite status on PokerStars.

As we all know, it takes a combination of skill and luck to advance deep in poker tournaments, though we are never quite sure what the exact mixture will be in any given event. We also tend to rue our bad luck while forgetting about the fortunate turns of cards that helped us pick up chips. David Yan seems to be keenly self-aware, understanding that his trip to the top of the leaderboard might not have been 100 percent the result of superior poker skill. Near the end of the night, a PokerNews.com reporter asked him how he got to the top of the chip counts. Yan’s response: “Well, it wasn’t a skill thing. I just hit everything on this table.”

Today, the 226 from Day 1B will meet the 103 who were waiting for them from Day 1A to sit down as a single field for Day 2. The plan is to play six 75-minute levels before calling it quits. Once all the late registrations are tabulated, the total prize pool and payout schedule will be announced.

2014 European Poker Tour Sanremo Main Event – Day 1A Chip Leaders

1.    David Yan – 179,100
2.    Andrey Lobzhanidze – 172,800
3.    Pierluigi Giglio – 163,800
4.    Juri Mereu – 147,000
5.    Jamie Roberts – 144,700
6.    Tobias Hagedorn – 143,900
7.    Gaelle Baumann – 130,500
8.    Federico Petruzzelli – 129,400
9.    Johnny Lodden     – 122,800

2014 European Poker Tour Sanremo Main Event – Combined Day 1 Chip Leaders

1.    David Yan – 179,100
2.    Andrey Lobzhanidze – 172,800
3.    Pierluigi Giglio – 163,800
4.    Cristiano Guerra – 148,700
5.    Juri Mereu – 147,000
6.    Jamie Roberts – 144,700
7.    Tobias Hagedorn – 143,900
8.    Gaelle Baumann – 130,500
9.    John Haigh – 130,000
10.    Federico Petruzzelli – 129,400

* Chip counts and other tournament info courtesy of PokerNews.com.

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