For the first time in its five year history, the European Poker Tour will make a stop in Hungary at the Las Vegas Casino in Budapest’s Sofitel Hotel. The buy-in for the No-Limit Hold’em event is €4,000 + €350. There is a 500 player cap, but the EPT has been known to relax its limits before. In fact, all of the seats are already sold out! The tournament is scheduled to last until November 1st, when one player will walk away from the final table with the first place prize.
Over 100 players have won seats to the Budapest open via online poker site PokerStars. Several Team PokerStars pros will also be making an apperance. Amongst those are names like Marcin Horecki, Katja Thater, Noah Boeken aka “Exclusive,” Victoria Coren, Luca Pagano, Bertrand Grospellier aka “ElkY,” William Thorson, Alex Kravchenko, and Dario Minieri. Also, Valdemar Kwaysser of Hungary, winner of the 2008 Latin American Poker Tour Costa Rica event.
Kwaysser won’t be the only Hungarian representing the rising number of skilled poker players for the country. He will be joined by other Hungarian pros Richard Toth, Csaba Toth, and Denes Kalo, who finished second in both of last season’s EPT Baden and the EPT Grand Final. Kalo ranks in the top ten of tournament earnings in EPT history.
Another interesting race will be taking place for Bertrand Grospellier, better known as “ElkY.” Grospellier, with winnings in past January’s EPT’s PokerStars Caribbean Adventure and the WPT Fest al Lago championship in Las Vegas, will be competing for not only the top slot in many of the Player of the Year races, but also for the title of the EPT all-time money list. Making the final table and finishing strong puts Grospellier at great odds of catching up to the current title holder, Glen Chorny. Grospellier has already proven his talent and skill in many ways, and this feat would prove it once again. Only two other players, Gavin Griffin and Roland de Wolfe, have been able to take down both the WPT and EPT titles as Grospellier has.