Yorky Pud

With the World Series of Poker effectively over until November, the eyes of the poker world have turned to Estonia for their fix of first class tournament poker. The European Poker Tour is currently in the Estonian capital city of Tallinn for the first stop of their eighth season and Day 1a has been completed.

A total of 92 players passed through the doors of the luxurious Swissotel in the heart of the 2011 European City of Culture and exchanged €4,250 for 30,000 tournament chips, one of the best blind structures in the game and the chance to become an EPT Champion. Amongst them were five former EPT Main Event winners, Arnaud Mattern, David Vamplew, Kent Lunmark, Roberto Romanello and Rupert Elder. All five players survived the day and will return on Thursday for the official Day 2.

The chip leader after seven levels of play had been finished was Russian Maksim Kolosov who managed to turn his 30,000 starting stack into a more than impressive 102,725. What makes Kolosov's performance even more impressive is the fact he had to share a table with some of Europe's best players. At one point Table 1 was the home to the aforementioned Lundmark and Romanello, but also Kevin Vandersmissen (runner up at EPT Snowfest), current EPT Player of the Year Fernando Brito and British pro Mathew Frankland. Being surrounded by these talented individuals did not seem to phase the young Russian and he will certainly be one to watch as the tournament progresses.

Day 1b begins at 1200 noon local time on Tuesday and the tournament staff and media are preparing themselves for a very busy day as around 200 players are expected to participate. Already confirmed to play are Sebastian Ruthernberg and JP Kelly, both of whom had very deep runs at this year's WSOP Main Event, Ruthenberg finishing in 55th place and Kelly 26th. Also due to take part are EPT regulars Juha Helppi and John O'Shea along with John Eames and Annette Obrestad.

Stay tuned to find out which players make it through to join the 68 survivors from Day 1a and feel free to follow all of the action as it happens via the PokerNews Live Reporting team.