Serbian Perica Bukara, who currently lives in Germany, pushed into the overnight chip lead with 210,600, outpacing Day 1a leader Ali Tekintamgac.

Spanish PokerStars qualifier Santiago Terrazas, who came third at EPT Barcelona last season, is close, as is Belarussian Team PokerStars Pro Vadim Markushevski.

EPT Tallinn, the first event of the EPT’s seventh season, drew a record 420 entrants, creating a €1,596,000 prize pool. First is worth €400,000.

The tournament will run through Aug. 16 at the Swissotel in the Estonian capital.

In the meantime, the start of the new European Poker Tour season brings the announcement of a new points system for the annual EPT Awards.

The awards will now feature a revised structure that gives weight to an event’s field size.

A new award is also being introduced to reward the best Heads-Up player.

The list of awards also includes Player of the Year, Omaha POY, Mixed Games POY, Players’ Choice, Best Achievement, Best Online Qualifier and Best Country.

“It’s going to be a little harder this year because I’m better-known now and people understand how I play a bit more,” said current EPT Player of the Year Max Lykov.

“But I plan to try, and I’m going to play all the EPTs. Changing the rules to award more points depending on field size is definitely a good idea.”

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