by Mario Alfonsi | Published on Mar 28, 2012 | Updated on Mar 28, 2012While Day 1A at the European Poker Tour Campione Main Event was a day featuring a small field of Italian players and the occasional foreign pro, Day 1B saw a much larger turnout, as 392 players put up €5,300 each to take a shot at winning an EPT title. In the end, it was Nicolas Chouity of Lebanon who bagged the largest stack, finishing with 165,800 chips.With the big turnout on Day 1B, the total field size grew to 570 players. That was enough to create a prize pool of €2,764,500, with €640,000 reserved for first place. In total, 88 players will make the money, with the minimum cash set at €7,500.As expected, Day 1B saw more famous faces join the field, and some of the world’s top tournament players were seen in the tournament room throughout the session. Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier will enter Day 2 with a very healthy stack, holding over 90,000 in chips. Eugene Katchalov, Victor Ramdin, Chris Moorman and David Vamplew all made it through to the second day of play as well.One player who found herself in a less fortunate situation was Vanessa Selbst. In a major confrontation towards the end of the day with chip leader Chouity, Selbst showed off her trademark aggression by moving all-in with a sixth bet, only to see Chouity call with pocket aces. Selbst only held J9 suited, and was eliminated when the aces held up. Other notables to suffer an early exit included Andrew Frankenberger, Michael Tureniec and Jeff Sarwer.Chouity is best known as the winner of the 2010 EPT Grand Final. Since then, he has made final a WSOP final table and cashed several times on both the EPT and at the WSOP. Over his career, Chouity has won over $2.6 million in live tournament play.Day 2 of EPT Campione will take place on Wednesday. 325 players remain in contention for the title, which will ultimately be awarded on Saturday, March 31.
