Bloggers / Matthew Pitt / 29 October 2008 / Leave a comment

The European Poker Tour has landed in Budapest, Hungary for the very first time in its history and Team Betfair have ended Day 1a in pole position.

Like EPT London, the Budapest leg was due to be capped at 500 players but organisers allowed an extra 32 players register due to the high demand for seats in the event, creating a prize pool of €2,128,000.

Team Betfair member, Annette Obrestad, did not get off to the best of starts when she suffered a bad beat to double up Peter Turmezey. All the chips went into the middle with Annette holding Kc Kh to Turmezey's 8c 8h. The board ran 5h 3d Ts 8s Ad and Annette politely tapped the table as her opponent dragged in large pot.

However, this loss would not dampen the 2007 WSOPE Main Event Champion's spirits as she proceeded to give the rest of her table a lesson in loose-aggressive poker and she ended the day as chip leader with a stack of 101,300, the oly player to break the 100,000-chip barrier during the day.

She is closely followed by fellow Betfair teammate, Sorel 'Imper1um' Mizzi who ended the day with a very healthy looking stack containing 74,950 chips to put him third overall for the tournament.

Annette and Sorel will be back in action at the Las Vegas casino, Budapest on Thursday 30 October with their eye on the €595,839 first prize.

Everyone at Betfair wishes them the very best of luck.

*** UPDATE ***

Annette Obrestad was unlucky not to cash after getting all her chips in holding nine-seven on a board that read J 7 9. Her opponent, Ivo Donev, held Jack-eight and was in all sorts of toruble until an eight fell on the turn. The river was a blank and Annette headed for the rail.

Sorel Mizzi was the sole Betfair player to cash, eventually busting out in 54th position for an €5,320 payday. The young Canadian ended up all-in with a pair of fours against Denis Volkov's pocket Tens. No two outer for Mizzi and he was eliminated.

You can play Annette and Sorel on Betfair Poker where Annette uses the moniker Annette_15, John Tabatabai plays as kunku wap whilst Mizzi plays as Imper1um.