The inaugural PokerStars.net EPT Kyiv drew a respectable 296 players from 33 countries around the world, those numbers despite a frantic eleventh-hour move from Moscow here to the Ukraine. Just eight players returned to the Sport Palace today to take their seats at the final table, playing for the EPT trophy and a first prize worth €330,000. A great crowd of spectators turned up as well to support this multi-national group of finalists, many of them adorned in full blue-and-yellow regalia in celebration of this, Ukrainian Flag Day.Just a few minutes after high noon, the cards went into the air under the bright lights of the television set up on the main stage. Right from the word “go,” the action was uninhibited as the early levels saw heavy betting and frequent all ins. Still, it would take nearly an hour of back-and-forth battling before the first casualty of the day. Coming into the final table second in chips, Vadim Markushevski would suffer the unfortunate fate of running his pocket kings into the pocket aces of fellow big stack, Alexander Dovzhenko. A board full of blanks meant an early end for the native of Belarus, his 8th-place finish good for €30,000.
www.pokernews.com
