by Mario Alfonsi | Published on Feb 1, 2012 | Updated on Feb 1, 2012The European Poker Tour swung back into action Tuesday, as EPT Deauville saw 339 players take to the felt in northern France. Tuesday was day 1A for the Deauville Main Event, which carried a buy-in of €5,000 + €300. Hosted by the Casino Barriere, this is the fourth straight year that the EPT has placed a Deauville stop on their schedule after a brief two year hiatus due to some quirks in French gambling laws.In fact, some of these quirks still remain, which give Deauville a bit of a unique flavor. When it comes to the actual play of the tournament, the main rule change players must consider is that a minimum raise is considered twice the previous bet. Normally, players are only required to raise an additional amount equal to the amount of the previous raise; in other words, if one player raised a 100 bet to 200, the next player could raise to 300 (another raise of 100 chips). In Deauville, players would be required to double that bet, making it 400 chips instead.Another place where the law has an impact is in final table play. In accord with French gambling regulations, there can be no final table deals made between players whatsoever. This isn’t a major change for spectators, but it will require that players play things out to the last hand for every dollar (even in smaller side events, which are frequently chopped in other tournaments).On the first day of play, two players jumped out to nearly share the lead. Kristijonas Andruilis of Lithuania and France’s own Philippe Ma both have stacks of just over 162,000, separating themselves somewhat from the 221 remaining players. However, Wednesday’s Day 1B is yet to be played, and should attract a large field – one that could threaten the tournament’s record of 891 players. The two fields will merge on Day 2, which will be played on Thursday.For more online poker news of this event keep your eyes on TopTenPokerSites.org daily for tournament updates.
