888poker LIVE £2,200 High Roller Smashes Guarantee; Song Leads 32 Survivors
The second event of the 2018 888poker LIVE Festival London follows in the footsteps of the €220 Opening Event and easily surpassed the guaranteed prize pool of £50,000, as Day 1 of the £2,200 High Roller attracted a total of 61 entries. Of those 61, only 32 players bagged up chips and will return for Day 2 on Thursday, November 29th, 2018, to the Aspers Casino in the Westfield Stratford City.
Leading the field after nine levels of 30 minutes each is UK's Yiqian Song with 433,500, followed by Ajay Kejriwal (407,500), and Gerald Ringe (396,500).
Among those to bag and tag for the night were also such notables as Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi (242,000), Matas Cimbolas (226,000), 888poker ambassador Martin Jacobson (203,000), 2018 WSOP Europe Main Event champ Jack Sinclair (157,500), Thomas Muehloecker (114,500), High Roller regular Orpen Kisacikoglu (89,000), and 888poker ambassador Chris Moorman (31,000).
Along with all other events of the festival in London, the £2,200 featured a 30-second shot clock and the very popular big blind ante format. Almost half of the field was eliminated throughout Day 1 including the 2018 WSOP Main Event champion John Cynn and runner-up Tony Miles, Antoine Labat, Enzo Del Piero and the 888poker ambassadors Parker Talbot, Ana Marquez, and Vivian Saliba.
Within just a few minutes into the first level, Terry Jordon had miss-clicked and became the first casualty of the day. However, the Brit re-entered and advanced with a stack of 116,000. In the second level of the day, Martin Donoghue had sent Harry Lodge and Labat to the rail, Lodge bought back in but didn't find a bag at the end of level nine either.
The 2018 WSOP Main Event final table revival kicked off in the second level when John Cynn sat down at the same table as Tony Miles, and Antoine Labat was eliminated only a few meters away one table over. Miles claimed the stack of Cynn but also ran out of chips before bagging and tagging.
Team 888poker was represented by Ana Marquez, Vivian Saliba, Parker Talbot, Chris Moorman and 2014 WSOP Main Event champion Martin Jacobson. Moorman was two-outed by Terry Jordon in the final level of the night when he failed to hold up with pocket tens versus pocket treys. Talbot, Saliba and Marquez also fell, the latter saw her ace-king end up second-best to the ace-queen of Francis Foord-Brown.
The late registration for the event remains open until the start of Day 2 at 5 p.m. local time and Dominik Nitsche is among those expected to enter the £2,200 High Roller before the cards go back in the air. All new entries will receive 100,000 in chips, 20 big blinds for the restart at blinds of 2,500/5,000 with a big blind ante of 5,000. The tournament is scheduled to play down to a champion and the PokerNews live reporting team will be on the floor to provide all the action.
