Let's be honest, starting a brand new poker tour is a bit a leap into the unknown. You do know the destinations will appeal, and also you do know the development organisation and format could be second-to-none. What you do not know is solely what number of players will take the difficulty to determine for themselves by signing up.

When PokerStars sponsored the Russian Poker Tour, it did so within the belief that this new series of events could be a well-liked addition to the poker calendar. Sure enough, because the tour kicked off in St Petersburg this week, it became clear that the boldness was well placed.

Ivan Demidov: on his strategy to Day Two

Side events were well attended, and the primary event, which kicked off at 3pm local time last night, exceeded all expectations by attracting 201 players, each paying $5,000 for the risk to take down the primary RPT title.

Among them were a merry band of PokerStars qualifiers, two members of Team PokerStars Pro - Vanessa Rousso and native favourite Alex Kravchenko - plus PokerStars sponsored player Ivan Demidov, the Russian who made the general table of the 2008 WSOP Main Event in November.

The size of the sector took organisers by surprise, with tournament director Thomas Kremser agreeing to transport to a ten-handed format in the beginning of play with a view to fit everyone in. Even then there has been a listing of alternates looking forward to their chance to enroll in the action.

But with many bust outs within the early levels, they soon got to sit. Early fallers were popular Russians Sergey Rybachenko and Alexander Kostritsyn, who wouldn't add to his $1.7 million in tournament cashes.

Kravchenko (33,000), Rousso (10,900) and Demidov (38,700) all made it through with 69 others to today's Day Two, when overnight chip leader Oleg Suntsov will return with an 85,600 chip mountain to guide the charge to the general table.

Vanessa Rousso, left, enjoying her RPT debut

If you'll be able to read Russian, and even if you cannot but have a penchant for words that make no sense all, then you definately can try to follow the action because it happens over at PokerStars' Russian blog. The prize payouts are available here, and we'll post the offical list of overnight chip counts just once we have now them.

Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: Russian Poker Tour]