The next leg of the popular PokerStars European Poker Tour began in Berlin, Germany, today, with 389 competitors signing up to play. 

As this was just the first (and most likely smallest) of two starting day’s at Berlin’s Grand Hyatt Hotel, it now appears quite likely that this €5,300 buy-in tournament, will indeed easily surpass it’s promised posted guarantee of €1,000,000 (or about $1,365,000 USD) to the eventual winner, and may even reach its cap of 1,000 players.

Many of the world’s top pros are currently still in Los Angeles competing in the World Poker Tour LA Poker Classic- and its accompanying High Roller event- but even with that event attracting so much attention, there were still plenty of recognizable faces in the crowd in Berlin, when the Day 1a cards hit the air.  Some of those top pros included Victoria Coren, Barny Boatman, Juha Helppi, Joao Barbosa, Jeff Sarwer and Katja Thater, all of whom still had chips by the end of Day 1a play.

Of course the same couldn’t be said for nearly half of the day’s other entrants, as only 196 players remained by the time organizers called it a day.

For more information on Day 1a of the PokerStars EPT Berlin main event visit www.europeanpokertour.com, or check out the PokerStars blog.