Antoine Labat Leads the Last 21 After Day 2; Fernando Pons in Contention
Day 2 of the 2018 888poker LIVE Festival London £1,100 Main Event is in the books and the field of 656 entries has been whittled down to the final 21 hopefuls after 10 levels of one hour each at the Aspers Casino at Westfield Stratford City. The lion's share of the £649,440 prize pool is still up for grabs and all remaining finalists already have £6,100 locked up for their efforts.
Leading the field by quite some margin is Antoine Labat with 2,825,000, well ahead of Christos Xanthopoulos (1,680,000) and Hak-Hyun Lee (1,555,000). Another four players bagged up more than a million in chips including James Williams (1,365,000) and 888poker.es ambassador Fernando Pons (1,050,000). Both Labat and Pons have another seven-figure story in common, as they finished in 9th place at the WSOP Main Event for $1,000,000 in 2018 and 2016 respectively.
Other notables still in contention include Lam Van Trinh (910,000), Philippe Souki (890,000), Antonios Onoufriou (795,000), Christopher Kyriacou (500,000) and Kelly Saxby (365,000). 888poker ambassador Ana Marquez was eliminated in one of the final hands of the night by Labat, 2018 WSOP Main Event champion John Cynn departed in 36th place.
888poker LIVE London £1,100 Main Event Schedule
| Day | Date | Time | Entries | Survivors | Further Information |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1a | November 29th 2018 | 18:00 | 97 | 23 | Play 12 levels of 40 minutes each, re-entry available |
| 1b | November 30th 2018 | 13:00 | 128 | 39 | Play 12 levels of 40 minutes each, re-entry available |
| 1c | November 30th 2018 | 18:00 | 140 | 41 | Play 12 levels of 40 minutes each, re-entry available |
| 1d | December 1st 2018 | 13:00 | 208 | 64 | Play 12 levels of 40 minutes each, re-entry available |
| 1e | December 1st 2018 | 19:00 | 66 | 27 | Play 12 levels of 20 minutes each, re-entry available |
| 2 | December 2nd 2018 | 14:00 | 639 | 194 | Registration closes at start; 10 levels of 60 minutes each scheduled |
| 3 | December 2nd 2018 | 14:00 | 656 | 21 | Play down to a champion; live stream with hole cards |
Action of the Day
The registration for the Main Event remained open until the first card was dealt and another 17 players entered with 12 big blinds and the hope of early run good. Among them were also Charlie Carrel, who had not stepped into a casino for half a year, as well as David Peters and Terry Jordon. There was no happy end for Carrel, but Jordon and Peters both cashed.
Notables that had to leave empty-handed much earlier than they'd hoped for included Fraser MacIntyre, Conor Beresford, Oliver Price, defending champion Tom Hall, Tamer Kamel, Kalidou Sow, Kevin Allen, Chris Da-Silva and Ludovic Geilich. For Da-Silva, there would be a happy end in the early morning hours as he topped a field of 145 entries in the £150 The Whale Side Event. The guaranteed prize pool was more than doubled and the top 18 spots shared £19,575 with Da-Silva taking home the trophy and £5,070 for his efforts.
For team 888poker, the day started disastrously as Vivian Saliba and Sofia Lovgren both exited in the first level of the day. Saliba lost a flip with pocket queens against ace-king and Lovgren ran with ace-jack suited into pocket aces. Fellow ambassadors Chris Moorman, Dominik Nitsche and Parker Talbot also busted well before the money spots.
Ultimately, it was Florence Allera that wound up as the bubble. There were two all in and call on separate tables and Mark Yi doubled with aces against the queens of Orpen Kisacikoglu. Allera had flopped a set of fours but Fuad Serhan turned a set of queens, the remaining chips only went in after a blank river.
From there on out, the eliminations came at a quick pace and included such notables as Michael Mizrachi (61st place, £2,300), Benny Glaser (56th place, £2,300), Romain Lewis (50th place, £2,600), Eoghan O'Dea (46th place, £2,600) and David Peters (41st place, £3,000). Peters, who came fresh off a trip from the Master Classics of Poker in Amsterdam, had his return flights to the United States booked for Tuesday via London and heard about the event, late registered and that decision paid off. Peters' run came to an end in a three-way all in with king-queen over on the feature table. Ramon Miquel Munoz won the side pot with ace-queen and online qualifier Martyn Duell flopped quads with pocket sixes to triple up.
In the final break of the night, 36 players remained and six of them bowed out in quick succession. Among them was also John Cynn, who was left short after paying off the two pair of Christos Xanthopoulos, and Cynn then got it in with seven-trey out of the big blind only for Iaron Lightbourne to deal the final blow holding ace-four.
Among the big names left, Thomas Muehloecker ran up his stack in the early stages of the day, but fell short of the final three tables. By then, Antoine Labat had seized control over the outer tables and was seemingly involved in every bigger pot. Despite doubling several short stacks, Labat stayed near the top of the leaderboard and two late eliminations cemented the status of chip leader for the Frenchman.
In a key hand, Labat turned a wheel with ace-trey suited and check-shoved into Iaron Lightbourne, who called all in with queens only to find himself drawing dead on a seven-high turn. Last but not least, Labat also claimed the stack of 888poker ambassador Ana Marquez when his ace-queen suited flopped best against the ace-king suited of Marquez.
All remaining 21 players will return on Monday, December 3rd, 2018, to the poker tables at the Aspers Casino as of 2 p.m. local time to play down to a champion. The blinds recommence at 15,000/25,000 with a big blind ante of 25,000 and the live stream of the feature table kicks off after the first break at approximately 4.15 p.m. local time. The PokerNews live reporting team will be right there until a champion is crowned here in London.
Main Event Day 3 Seat Assignments
| Table | Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Mark Yi | Singapore | 875,000 | 35 |
| 1 | 2 | Fernando Pons | Spain | 1,050,000 | 42 |
| 1 | 3 | Hak-Hyun Lee | Sweden | 1,555,000 | 62 |
| 1 | 4 | Martyn Duell | United Kingdom | 525,000 | 21 |
| 1 | 5 | Kelly Saxby | United States | 365,000 | 15 |
| 1 | 6 | Christos Xanthopoulos | Greece | 1,680,000 | 67 |
| 1 | 7 | Derek Lawless | United Kingdom | 1,410,000 | 56 |
| 2 | 1 | Daniel Hopkins | United Kingdom | 865,000 | 35 |
| 2 | 2 | Antoine Labat | France | 2,825,000 | 113 |
| 2 | 3 | Antonios Onoufriou | Cyprus | 795,000 | 32 |
| 2 | 4 | Philippe Souki | United Kingdom | 890,000 | 36 |
| 2 | 5 | Christopher Kyriacou | United Kingdom | 575,000 | 23 |
| 2 | 6 | Dinh Le | United Kingdom | 315,000 | 13 |
| 2 | 7 | [Removed:208] | Serbia | 410,000 | 16 |
| 3 | 1 | James Williams | United Kingdom | 1,365,000 | 55 |
| 3 | 2 | Helmut Hauser | Germany | 470,000 | 19 |
| 3 | 3 | Lam Van Trinh | United Kingdom | 910,000 | 36 |
| 3 | 4 | Craig Sweden | United Kingdom | 540,000 | 22 |
| 3 | 5 | Arkadi Kilman | Russia | 465,000 | 19 |
| 3 | 6 | Fuad Serhan | Jordan | 415,000 | 17 |
| 3 | 7 | Aleem Kanji | United Kingdom | 1,290,000 | 52 |
and Marquez became the last casualty of the day.
turn for 75,000 and the 
, Kanji held pocket kings for top set.
flop for around 200,000 and Kanji called, Hopkins folded.
turn and 
river bricked off for Havacs and he was eliminated in 23rd place for £5,200.
, Mahamdi found no help and was eliminated in 24th place for £4,300.
river. Lodge's run came to an end in 25th place for £4,300.
flop and the latter check-called a bet of 60,000 by Lightbourne. On the 
of Arvydas Merfeldas as the board came 
