Season 5 of Eureka Gets Underway in Rozvadov

King’s Casino in the small Czech town Rozvadov opened its doors yesterday to welcome the participants of the inaugural event for the Season 5 of PokerStars Eureka Poker Tour. Playing the host for the third time, Rozvadov will offer nine days of exciting poker action crowned by the €500,000 Main Event.

This year, the Main Event will feature a better structure with bigger starting stacks and more play. Those who get eliminated during one of the two starting flights will also have a chance to buy into a special turbo-flight and try to catch the last train to advance to Day 2. Entry to the turbo flight will be limited only to those who played and were knocked out during either Day 1A or 1B.

Another novelty for Season 5 is that the Player of the Year race will be tracked and updated by the Global Poker Index, and a special, two-tier system fitting for the Eureka has been devised.

Langar Oghabian ends Day 1A with a chiplead

The first flight of the Main Event was played out yesterday and it was Langar Oghabian bagging the chiplead when it was all said and done. With the stack of 258,900, he was one of 24 who checked their ticket to the Day 2 in a 98-strong field. He is followed by Denis Ursu of Russia and Willibald Stopfer of Germany.

Some of those who failed to get through and who will have to look for their chance in the Turbo flight taking place on February 26th include Vienna winner from Season 4 Zoltan Gal and UKIPT IoM 2 finalist Josef Snejberg.

The Main Event action will now take a step back as Day 1B and Day 1C (turbo flight) are only scheduled to take place on Thursday, February 26th. This is another novelty that has been introduced in order to give players plenty of space and time to play in as many events during the festival.

Eureka 100 Grand Challenge kicks off

Another event that went underway together with the Main yesterday was the Eureka 100 Grand Challenge, featuring €220 buy-in with reentries. Total of 62 players (four reentries included) took it to the felt and 27 survived the Day 1A. German Fabian Flichner emerged on top with a stack of 137,200, followed by Czech’s own Premysl Rada who bagged 114,300.

We will be bringing you regular updates from Rozvadov as exciting poker action unfolds in the coming days.