PokerStars welcome parties are not massively different from any gathering at which there are a bunch of strangers and an open bar. The pockets of folk who are already acquainted liberally swill free liquor and grow nostalgic about the last time they liberally swilled free liquor in each other's company, while the untethered strays liberally swill free liquor and gradually grow acquainted.

Last night, this much-practised tradition took place in the Cloud Nine bar on - wait for it - the ninth floor of the Hilton Prague. There, the usual smattering of Team PokerStars Pros joined a huge army of online qualifiers and all the other clingers on at an EPT (Hello!) for a nice turkey dinner and a few shandies. And some folk grew acquainted.

A veteran of many parties past is Shaun Deeb, the PokerStars passport winner and all-round tournament poker sensation. Deeb has recently stunned this close-knit community by announcing, at the age of 24, that he is retiring from tournament poker to focus on other pursuits. Many of the conversations last night centred on this revelation, often including Deeb himself, who was prepared to answer whatever questions folks had on the subject.

Among his inquisitors was Melanie Weisner, a PokerStars qualifier from New York City, Deeb's home state.

"What part of New York are you from?" Deeb asked Weisner.
"Greenwich Village," she replied.
"Oh, I'm from Albany," Deeb said.
"I know," said Weisner.

Weisner - aka Callisto 5 - is an online poker pro, and so knows Deeb very well, at least by reputation. She admitted that she had contributed to the many online forum discussions of his retirement announcement, expressing her surprise and disappointment that he would no longer be providing the inspiration for a whole legion of online pros and their forays onto the live stage.

Weisner is one of them. She's no stranger to live play and made her debut at the World Series last year, where she hung out with (and was backed by) Kevin "Bel0wAb0ve" Saul and Christian "Charder30" Harder, among others. Although this is her EPT debut, she knows Europe very well having studied here during her undergrad days at NYU. As a musical theatre major, Weisner spent two years in Prague, fell in love with the city and vowed to return, even after her studies took her back to her native United States.

Poker gave her the opportunity to return: she played an $800 qualifying satellite on PokerStars, originally intending to take a seat in Barcelona, but happily switching it to Prague.

Weisner was wisely tapping up Deeb last night for his advice on how to approach an EPT event, but was probably not expecting to be seated on the same table as him, to his immediate right no less.

Although Deeb crashed out during the first level (not necessarily following his own advice to keep it tight in the early stages - see 1.45pm update here), Weisner remains as we go into level three. She's had some excellent results in the online environment, particularly in the lower buy-in rebuy events on PokerStars.

The words: "Treat it like the hundred freezeout," coming from Deeb must have made Weisner very comfortable indeed.

That's the outside world taken care of, full of cobbles, church spires and hot booze, time now to look inwards, at ourselves and our surroundings, to tiled floors, fluorescent lighting and cold sandwiches.

As far as tournament rooms go what the function suite at the Prague Hilton lacks in grandeur, it makes up in space, and for several hundred poker players that's good enough. Wood panelled walls are as good as it gets in here, with stage lights hung from the ceiling. But beneath them there's ample space for 30 tournament tables and a another dozen set off to the side, permanent home to the comforting clatter of cash games for the deft, the defeated and for those still too shell shocked to know what they are.

It was in this place where two of the most memorable EPT finales have been seen, first in the heaving coliseum of season four when, without the intrusion of cameras, Arnaud Mattern and Gino Alacqua brought the first Prague event to a head, the Frenchman, now elevated to the ranks of Team PokerStars Pro, winning €708,400 and a place on the recognisable list.

Then a year later, a surge of Italian talent used Prague to launch an assault on the EPT, a cast that came from the south and that has since then shown no drop in enthusiasm, thanks to last year's heralded champ Salvatore Bonavena. What we'll get this year to beat will be known soon enough. In the meantime pick your early tournament favourite from this day 1a lot:

For Team PokerStars Pro Ruben Visser, Joep van den Bijgaart, Marcel Luske and Pieter de Korver are here, as is Marcin Horecki and the German contingent of Katja Thater, Sandra Naujoks, Ben Kang and Florian Langmann. Also here is former champion Mattern, who arrived at his table a little the worse for wear but is already up a few grand and singing happily to himself "Tonight's gonna be a good night."

Andreas Hagen makes a welcome return. Italian Luca Falaschi and OJBS guy sit alongside each other and opposite Almira Skripchenko. Konstantinos Alexiou is back to top his fourth place finish last season. Other former finalists include Vilamoura heroes Pierre Neuville and Jan Skampa, sitting on Nicolas Levi's table, as well as Mark Gork, Julian Thew (more a winner than a finalist) and Georgios Kapalas

One handed table of the level: As players continue to register and the tournament officials open new tables to accommodate the latecomers, it seemed for a moment as if Alex Catala, on table 15, had the best draw of the lot. He was sitting alongside, well, no one - except eight empty chairs and unfilled television release forms.

As if to rescue him from the ignominy of being beaten out of a pot by these invisible foes, the EPT Dortmund champion Sandra Naujoks drew up an empty chair, and they were soon joined by John Kabbaj, a bracelet winner at this year's World Series. Then, as if the table wasn't already stacked enough, Benjamin Kang made this a fearsome four.

The measured, calming tones of the EPT Tournament Director Thomas Kremser welcomed us to Prague this afternoon and ran through the details of today's play.

As has become standard, we'll be playing eight one-hour levels with no dinner break, taking us through to about 8.45pm. There will be a three 15-minute breaks, after levels two, four and six. And then it's off into the night for flagons of pils.

Players begin with stacks of 30,000 chips and the blinds are at 50-100 for the first level. The full tournament structure can be seen on the EPT tournament structure page.

Our coverage on PokerStars blog works like this. For the first couple of days, we'll be interspersing live hand updates with feature posts. This kind of thing is what we mean by hand updates, and this is what we mean by features. Look out for everything throughout the day.

We have approximate chip counts from some of the notable players over at the chip count page, which are updated regularly and will become full and exhaustive at the end of the day.

A crack (cracked?) team of video bloggers are out and about, chatting to players, recording hands and generally interjecting, all in the name of PokerStars.tv. Head on over there for televisual needs.

Other than that, sit back and enjoy the frolics.

Updates from levels one and two of EPT Prague, brought to you by Stephen Bartley, Marc "The Conv" Convey, Howard Swains and Simon Young.

Blinds: 75-150

2.15pm: Two down, six to go
That would be two levels down. There will now be a 15-minute break before we start level 3.

2.14pm: Horecki chips up
Team PokerStars Pro: Poland Marcin Horecki raked in a nice pot against Zoltan Varga, sitting immediately to his left. I picked up the action on a flop of [3c][kd][ks] and Varga, in the small blind checked, as did Horecki on the button. On the [7d] turn Varga bet 2,125 but Horecki made it 6,500. Call. The river was [7s] and Varga checked to Horecki who now made it 10,000. After a bit of a dwell Varga let it go.

As he piled up the loot, Horecki - now on 40,000 - asked: "Did you have aces?" No reply from Varga suggested he may well have done.

2.10pm: No name, no chips
Francesco Cirianni doubled up after a pre-flop ding-dong with The Man With No Name. Of course, The Man With No Name (TMWNN) does have a name, but he point-blank refused to give it to us.

Anyway, here's what happened: Cirianni made it 1,725, TMWNN made it 5,600. There was another 10,000 on top from Cirianni - called by TMWNN.

The flop came [6d][kh][3s] and Cirianni dwelled a little before checking. That prompted TMWNN to move all in - insta call:

TMWNN: [qh][qs]
Cirianni: [kc][kd]

The Italian was a mile ahead and the [9s] turn and [8c] river changed nothing. He's up to 58,000 whileTMWNN slumped to 2,400.

One more try: "Can I have your name, please?"
"No, I don't want to."
"Thanks for your help."

2.05pm:Tough lay down
Stuart Rutter just informed me how he had to make a tough lay down on the river. Three players were involved but only Rutter and the initial aggressor remained by the time the river came. It brought the club Rutter was looking for to make his second nut flush but it also paired the board. Rutter led out for 2,000 but had to fold to a raise to 8,000 by his opponent.

1.55pm: Spotted
Marcel Luske raking in a nice pot on the river holding [5s][6s] and the board reading [5d][8d][6c][7c][3s].

1.50pm: Schmeyer and Bevand
Christophe Schmeyer found himself in the small blind with only Manuel Bevand in the big left to go. So he raised it, 450 which Bevand re-raised to 1,250. In it for the long haul Schmeyer called for a flop of [7s][7h][6s]. Schmeyer checked before Bevand made it 1,700. Schmeyer called for a [9d] on the turn. Now Schmeyer bet 2,800. Bevand called for a [th] river
but didn't like it. Schmeyer now made it 7,000, a good crowd now watching the hand. But Bevand was unhappy. "It's the worst card in the deck on the river," he said. "Argh..." Fold.

1.45pm: Deeb downed
PokerStars Passport winner Shaun Deeb has failed to make it through the first level. Martial Blangenwitsch raised it to 525 from the button and Deeb called to see a [5h][qc][5d] flop where they both checked it through. The fireworks started after the [kd] turn was dealt. Deeb led for 675 only to face a raise to 1,675. He added another 2,625 to the raise before moving all in after Blangenwitsch had raised by another 4,000.
Blangenwitsch snap called with [as][5c] and he was in good shape as Deeb could only muster a drawing [jd][ts]. The river came [jh] and Deeb hastily made his exit.

1.35pm: Because he Kang
Team PokerStars Pro Ben Kang limped in from under-the-gun and fellow Pro Sandra Naujoks completed from the small blind before the big blind bumped it up by another 400. Only Kang called to see the [ks][6s][3c] flop where he called a 1,200 bet. The big blind continued with the aggressive line after the [qc] was dealt with a 3,000 bet and once again Kang cold called. The river came [jh] prompting the big blind to slow down to check. Kang took up the initiative and bet 5,000 and took the pot down as the big blind folded. A big smile came across the big German's face as he showed [4s][4d]!

1.25pm: Tricky table Deeb
As usual the random seat draw has thrown up some tough and interesting tables. The PokerStars qualifier Melanie Weisner, who was delighted to be introduced to Shaun Deeb at the welcome party last night, today finds herself at his table in the main event. Sharing the same felt are Team PokerStars Pros JP Kelly and Joep Van Den Bijgaart - and also a former EPT champion in Julian Thew. That's a tough start for Weisner, but we'll follow her play today to see how she gets on.

1.20pm: Marcel takes one
Team PokerStars Pro Marcel Luske picked up some early chips in this hand. Kazoulin Dimitri made it 350 from the button, and Luske called from the small blind. The flop came [10h][jc][2c] and Luske check-called Dimitri's 500 bet. Both checked the [5h] turn and the [8d] river and went to showdown:

Dimitri: [ac][9h]
Luske: [as][qh]

The queen kicker played for the Dutchman, and he moved slowly above his 30,000 starting stack.

1.15pm: Level up
That was quick - we're already done with level one. Guess what? It's now level two.

1.05pm: Passive pre-flop, aggressive post flop
Five players limped into Dutch Team PokerStars Pro Ruben Visser's big blind and he checked his option. After the flop came down [6c][td][5c] the first limper bet 250 and was called in two spots before the young Dutchman raised it up to 1,200. It wasn't long before all three players folded.

12.50pm: Aggressive table pays
PokerStars qualifier Kevin MacPhee has just been telling me how his table is "Sickly aggressive" and when you look over and see Shaun Deeb sat at the same table you can easily believe that.

MacPhee has managed to take advantage of this and is up to 50,000 already. He won the surplus chips in two pots where he flopped a set of fours and then flopped the nut flush and got paid some both times.

12.30pm: Tonight's going to be a good good night'
Another Frenchman not shy about putting his chips in early is Team PokerStars Pro Arnaud Mattern. He three-bet an opponent only to be four-bet right back. Mattern's answer was to five-bet forcing the fold from his opponent and then show him a four!

Not only that as he starting singing "Tonight's going to be a good good night" to rub it in a little more.

Edit:Arnuad Mattern actually six-bet his opponent. That had been an initial raise from a third player involved in the hand. Makes the move even more daring.

12.20pm: Doesn't take long to be all in
The river was out giving us a [qd][2s][5s][qs][jd] board and there was already around 30,000 in the pot. Anthony Roux was heads-up with Boris Zeleny and when the latter checked from the under-the-gun position the former moved all in for his last 15,000 or so. Zeleny looked a little pained and after dwelling for a while he slowly slid his cards to the dealer. Nice start for the Frenchman.