![[user46298]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
And, what a surprise, it's a tough one.
Andrew Lichtenberger *M*
John Eames
Robert Akery
Andy Bloch
Ross Boatman
Arnaud Mattern *M*
Vanessa Peng
Luke Trotman *M*
*M* denotes being massaged. There are more Ibiza Angels vigorously pressing the players' stressed shoulders round this table than in any other part of the casino.
From the under-the-gun position, Pierre Canali raised to 250. John Juanda called from the next seat and then action folded to Aftab Ahmed in the big blind. Ahmed reraised to 750 and then Canali raised again to 2,125. Juanda tossed his hands up in the air and tossed in his cards. Ahmed then thought for a minute and made it 5,300 to go. Canali took about 20 seconds or so to move all in for 28,100. Ahmed went back into the tank and there he sat for a few minutes. Eventually, he stacked up his chips and sent them into the middle, only to see Canali table the 
. Ahmed sheepishly turned up the 
.
The board ran out 
and Canali moved his stack to 56,500 in chips. He is now the early chip leader, but who knows how long that will last because anything can happen in poker. Canali is also seated at the Table of Death we outlined earlier that includes John Juanda, Chris Ferguson, Brent Roberts, Scott Fischman and Allen Kessler.
Seated next to November Niner Filippe Candio is a face that few will recognise, but one that could soon rise to prominence in the world of poker. Better known as "Jugleman12" online, Daniel Cates is a 20-year old online sensation currently entangled in an epic battle with Tom "durrrr" Dwan in the second installment of the Durrrr Challenge.
From working in McDonalds and playing for pennies in home games, Cates' scale of the poker ladder has been nothing short of meteoric, working his way up from 5¢/10¢ right up to the some of the biggest stakes available online. There were a few bumps along the way (Cates once lost $500,000 to Internet phenomenon "Isildur1"), but he maintained his discipline and composure to make a full recovery and continue playing the nosebleed stakes against some of the toughest opponents around.
Whilst this £10,000 buy-in might pale in comparison to the figure he's currently profiting from durrrr, he'll surely be keen to prove his worth on the live felt as well as online. At the moment, his stack has seen little movement, but he's certainly a player we'll be keeping a close eye on as the day progresses.
Table 4 is most certainly the toughest table in town, but the adjacent Table 2 is no slouch either. Ted Lawson is in Seat 2 over there, and the three seats to his left are occupied by Erik Seidel, Teddy Sheringham, and Jason Mercier in that order. November Niner Joseph Cheong just took his seat in the nine hole. There's really no easy table in this field today, but Table 2 is one we'll be keeping an especially keen eye on.
One of the empty seats over at Table 4, the one we chronicled as the early table of death, has just been taken by Chris "Jesus" Ferguson to make the table even tougher now.
Table 21, until two minutes ago, was playing four handed, with Joe Beevers, Huck Seed, Bojan Gledovic and Pat Walsh all in a row fighting over each other's chips. Apparently Mr. Walsh arrived in an aggressive mood, and hand been raising constantly - but has taken an early tumble for more than a third of his stack.
The winner of this early big pot: Huck Seed, back refreshed after his heads-up efforts yesterday and ready to raise under the gun... which he duly did - but then Walsh made it 600 and Seed fourbet to 1,600. Call.
Flop: 
. Seed bet out 2,600 and got a call.
Turn: 
. Check-check.
River: . Now Seed bet 8,000 and Walsh had a lengthy think. Suddenly he made his decision and called, but mucked when Seed showed 
.
There are two tables separated from the pack up on the far balcony overlooking the main floor. We took a walk up there to see, not surprisingly, two tough tables.
Table 28 is the realm of the onliners as it has Joe "planetearf" Serock sitting to the Dan "KingDan" Smith seated to the immediate right of Kevin "Wu_Wizard" MacPhee in the three and four seats, respectively. They're staring across the table at Dan "KingDan" Smith who occupies the eight seat.
Table 29 has Vanessa Selbst in Seat 5 and Vitaly Lunkin in the eight. As we were standing there, Huck Seed took a seat in the three hole, and Selbst and him struck up a quick conversation. After just a minute, however, Seed realized that his location didn't match his seat draw, and he said, "Hi and bye," and headed off in search of his actual table.
"You'd think after twenty years of poker..." Selbst picked at him as he walked away.
More stars than an entire series of Celebrity Squares up here - Nick Schulman, Faraz Jaka, Huck Seed, Roberto Romanello, David Baker, Ben Roberts, Hoyt Corkins, David Baker and Filippo Candio all hoping for a promising start.
Upstairs there are 10 tables, two of which are in the corner along the other side of the balcony, and the other eight in the room adjacent to the bar. There are a number of empty seats (one table has kicked off three-handed), but several familiar faces have taken their seats, all of whom arriving wetter than Marti Pellow as a consequence of the good ol' British weather.
One of those is Annette Obrestad, fresh off announcing "Shuffle up and deal!" downstairs. She's currently playing four-handed with Nicolas Levi, Jason Lester and Chad Brown - not the easiest of starts for the inaugural WSOP Europe champion.
Meanwhile, we are also graced by the presence of Scott Montgomery, Roberto Romanello, Chris Bjorin, Peter Gould, Thomas Bichon, and recent £5,000 Omaha bracelet winner Jeff Lisandro. It's quite the star-studded line-up; Joe Bloggs is nowehere to be seen.
Just a few feet away from out media desk downstairs on the side of the stage is one of the toughest table in the tournament straight from the start of things. John Juanda, who won the 2008 WSOP Europe Main Event, just sat down to lock horns with Scott Fischman, Brent Roberts, Allen Kessler and Toby Lewis. That's quite the tough table and it'll be interesting to see how it plays out throughout the day.
