The European Poker Tour spends January visiting the beaches of the world. After the sun-kissed, golden sands of the Bahamas, home of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, we have now decamped to Normandy in Northern France, which is an unfortunate 24° latitude further north than Nassau--and 50°F cooler.
While the gentle thermals of the Bahamas bathed ones skin in warmth, the chill gusts of Normandy strip it from ones bones.
Fortunate, then, that we're indoors, inside the convention centre of the Barriere Casino, Deauville, preparing for the eighth EPT tournament to be held here. We are actually even closer to the beach here in France than in the Caribbean. Indeed, we are practically underneath it. The tournament room is reached via a tunnel from the Normandy Barriere Hotel and then emerges in a bubble amid the beach huts and mini-golf courses.
We are nestled close to a harbour and there are vendors selling fresh fruit and vegetables in charming village squares. But, honestly, who cares about that.
Back inside, this tournament is a €5,300 affair where the crowds have always been buoyant. Last year there were 782 players and there's no reason to expect anything different this time, spread across two starting flights.
It's Day 1A today and the hotel breakfast rooms, town centre bistros, convention centre corridors and lobbies are already full. The French Poker Series events (of which more later) preceded the main EPT, so there's plenty of action already ongoing.
Play in the Main Event begins at noon and the plan for today is eight 75-minute levels. We will finish past midnight, but it is usually worth getting this long stage out the way, freeing up the rest of the week to take place at a more leisurely pace. The full structure of all EPT tournaments is on the EPT tournament structure page.
