The World series is all well and good, and may rightly dominate the poker spotlight right now. But if you're Italian the place to be is San Remo, and the start of the brand new
PokerStars Italian Poker Tour which has kicked off across the Atlantic.

The first stop of the PokerStars Italian Poker Tour found players right back in San Remo, Italy, host of one of the most popular stops on the European Poker Tour. More than 250 players settled in for some Italian action today. After nine levels on day one, 110 players remained.

In action today, the brand new Team PokerStars Pro Italia. The fresh faces on the tour include Filippo Candio, Pier Paolo Fabretti, Simone Ruggeri, Nicola Fedeli, and Elena Ichim.

Among the faces in the Italian crowd was none other than Team PokerStars Pro Isabelle Mercier. Armed with an Italian dictionary and a love for the host country, Mercier is marching into day two with 70,000 chips.

At day's end, Daniele Amatruda is resting on more than 200,000 chips, good for the chip lead and a good night's rest. Italian poker fans will probably also recognize some of the names still in contention:Gianni Giaroni, Daniele Mazzia, Alessandro De Michele, Giorgio Bernasconi, Sergio Castelluccio, Massimo Di Cicco, Simone Rossi, Marco Figuccia, Michele Di Lauro, Stefano Moresco, Simone Coppari, Matteo Pecorella, Danilo D'Ettoris.

Day 2 kicks off on Sunday. Good luck to all the players still in the hunt.