Less than 24 hours after Elio Fox was crowned the new WSOPE champion to the tune of €1.4 million, another major event on the European tournament calendar has kicked off.

PokerStars' European Poker Tour San Remo stop started today at 1pm, local time, featuring a six-day poker festival and headlined by a €4,900 Main Event.

Set in the beautiful surroundings of the small town of San Remo on the border between Italy and France, the EPT San Remo is one of the tour's longest-standing events, as well as traditionally one of the most popular.

Last year's main event saw British star Liv Boeree make her definite breakthrough after taking home a €1.25 million first prize, once and for all propelling the young poker beauty into the world tournament elite.

This year, Boeree will try to defend her title in what looks to be an exceptionally tough field, with many of the game's biggest stars arriving directly from the WSOPE in Cannes to play on Day 1a today at the Casino San Remo.

Among the roughly 350 players who have signed up on the tournaments first day are a large handful of stars, mostly made up from tournament regulars from both Europe and abroad.

Daniel Negreanu, Arnaud Mattern, Lex Veldhuis, Ana Marquez, Mickey Petersen, Marcin Horecki, Steve O'Dwyer, Jason Mercier, Maria Ho, Victor Ramdin, Xuan Liu, Vanessa Rousso, Jennifer Harman, Scott Seiver and Kent Lundmark are just some of the biggest names to have registered today, with most sitting on average stacks so far.

Only a small group of players have managed to get a head start, and among these Italian Andrea Finotti is currently doing best with 79,000 from a 30,000 starting stack.

Canadian Kevin MacPhee and EPT Berlin winner Rupert Elder are also doing well in second and third place, respectively.

Play will continue until late tonight as the registrations continue to tick in, with Day 1b set to commence tomorrow, also at 1pm.

Final table is set to be played on Wednesday, October 26.

For more information and running updates from the 2011 EPT San Remo, see the PokerStars Blog.