The biggest High-Roller in Namur's history

Piotr Nurzynski and David Docherty

In all my years of coverage in Namur, I've never seen such an expensive tournament held at the Casino.

4 400 €.

The High-Roller on offer at this year's Circus Poker Series was a scary one for the organizers, given that high-rollers are usually priced at €600 or €2,200 maximum. Here, we're approaching the amounts that players drop on an EPT Main Event buy-in.

The guarantee was set at €100,000, so all we had to do was reach 25 players for the guarantee to be exceeded. It's not done yet, but we're already getting close, as registration will be open until the end of the second level of Day 2.

So far, 20 players have taken their seats at the tables of this High-Roller, which some people like to call the Super High-Roller and which started at 5pm.

Among the participants in this tournament, which attracted a few sharks who came early to the festival, was EPT Barcelona 2018 winner Piotr Nurzynsky, seated to the right of UKIPT Player of the Year, Scotland's David Docherty.

Paul-François Tedeschi, who just busted the Mystery Bounty on the chiplead pot, will also be at the start of this event, as well as a number of regulars from the region's biggest tournaments, including Antoine Vranken, Johnny Nedved, Dovidio Monaco and Michal Kil.

Paul-François Tedeschi

Warranty expired on High-Roller

We didn't really doubt it, but with 29 entries counted on Day 1, the €100,000 guarantee has already been exceeded on the €4,400 High-Roller.

With two levels left to play on Day 1, there are now just 16 players in the running at blinds 1,000 / 2,500 (BB Ante 2,500) for an average of 180,000, and for the moment it's Belgian Arthur Thiriart who leads with a stack of 2 times the average.

In particular, we lost Johnny Nedved, Paul-François Tedeschi and Bart Lybaert on Day 1, players who could potentially play again tomorrow on Day 2.

Piotr Nurzynsky, winner of EPT Barcelona 2018

Troop status :

Table 1:

Piotr Nurzynski 220 000
Dovidio Monaco 240 000
Bjorn Verbakel 108 000
Raoul Refos 80 000
Firat Baltaci 210 000

Table 2:

Arthur Thiriart 380,000
Alexis Lucarini 230,000
Igor Picone 270,000
Maxim Bevers 110,000
David Docherty 90,000

Table 3:

Erik Bauer 197,000
Cédric Schumacher 65,000
Martin Sedlak 175,000
Iman Ghashayar 85,000
Wouter Beltz 185,000
Matslide 35,000

Players will play two more levels on Day 1, and the day's survivors will return tomorrow at 1pm for Day 2. I'll let you in on the day's final chip-count as soon as the action is over here in the beautiful hall of Namur's Circus Casino Resort.

Iman Ghashayar

Registration is still open for the first two levels tomorrow, with the cut-off time for registration and re-registration at 2.50pm. The blinds will then be 2,000/5,000 (BB Ante 5,000) for an initial stack of 100,000 chips.

Igor Picone High-Roller chipleader at 13 left

Igor Picone

At the end of Day 1, and with registration still open until the end of the second level of Day 2, Igor Picone is firmly in the lead of the 13 remaining players in the €4,400 High-Roller, with a stack of €495,000 on takeover.

In particular, he earned himself the scalp of scarecrow David Docherty at the very end of the day, when the Scottish player warmed up to pay his all-in overbet with As-King high when he had two pairs flopped on a Td-9h-2d-3h board with Th-9d in hand.

See you tomorrow at 1:00 pm for the continuation of the competition in blinds 1,500/3,000 (BB Ante 3,000) for an average of 230,000.

Complete chip-count (and seat-draw) at the end of Day 1:

Place	First name	Name	Table	Headquarters	Stack	Country
1	IGOR	PICONE	43	6	495.000	Belgium
2	MARTIN MICHAEL	SEDLAK	43	1	355.000	Belgium
3	DOVIDIO	MONACO	41	6	335.500	Belgium
4	ARTHUR	THIRIART	42	2	308.500	Belgium
5	MAXIM	BEVERS	42	4	284.000	Belgium
6	WOUTER	BELTZ	43	3	225.000	Netherlands
7	FIRAT	BALTACI	41	8	198.000	Netherlands
8	PIOTR	NURZYNSKI	41	7	180.500	Poland
9	ERIK	BAUER	41	5	166.000	Slovakia
10	IMAN	GHASHAYAR	43	2	162.000	Netherlands
11	BJORN	VERBAKEL	41	2	143.500
12	ALEXIS	LUCARINI	42	6	97.000	France
13	RAOUL	REFOS	42	3	66.500	Netherlands