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After beginning life with an impressive turnout for both the inaugural Pro/Am tournament as well as for the $20k buy-in Main Event, the Epic Poker league is faced with its first hurdle after a less than spectacular 97 players turned out for the second Pro/Am tournament. With the tour needing 132 entrants to reach the guaranteed $180k in prizes (nine EPL Main Event seats) the turnout this weekend will force the EPL to pony-up over $50k toward the prize-pool.

As far as the tournament goes, 20 players managed to make it through to Monday’s Day 2, and since unlike the first Pro/Am there is no additional prize-money the tournament will likely be called to a halt when nine players remain –since 1^st place and 9^th place receive the same prize; a seat in the $20k Main Event.

The 20 players remaining constitute some of the biggest names in poker, including one of the biggest names of all in Phil Hellmuth. Also playing for a discounted will be Rep Porter, Matt Marafioti, Brandon Meyers, Russell Rosenblum, Christian Harder, Jamie Kaplan, Orson Young, Jeremy Ausmus, Greg Mueller, Ryan Young, Tim West, Sean Getzwiller, Nam Le, Andreas Hoivold, Jeremiah DeGreef, JJ Liu, Brent Roberts and Michael Divita.

A major reason for the attendance decline has to be from the European poker schedule, which is in full swing during September. Because of the numerous tournaments taking place in Europe over the next month many of the European tournament pros are staying home, as well as a slew of American pros staying in Europe at the present time.