"bloodny" Leads the Way into Day 2 of 888poker's XL Winter Series Event #43: $500,000 Main Event

The final nine players in 888poker's XL Winter Series Event #43: $500,000 Main Event have now been set, and Russian player "bloodny" is the big chip leader going into Day 2 with almost 17.5 million. They played their way through a big starting field of 2,326 entries to have the best shot at what's left of the $546,610 prize pool.

They will be joined on Day 2 by two other players with more than 10 million chips, Lithuanian "Eg1D1" and fellow Russian player "D.Bogachev". Also in the final nine is famed Irish poker pro and author Dara "Doked" O'Kearney. Having just recently written the book on ICM, O'Kearney will be looking to apply that knowledge for Day 2 and the big pay jumps.

Join PokerNews on Jan 31 at 2:30 pm ET as we bring action from the final table of this Main Event. You can also catch the action on a 30-minute delay over on 888pokerTV, so you can be sure not to miss any of the action.

The Final Nine Players in Event #43: $500,000 Main Event

Place	Player	Country	Chips
1	bloodny	Russia	17,490,705
2	Eg1D1	Lithuania	11,615,296
3	D.Bogachev	Russia	10,844,078
4	sergebezb	Estonia	6,850,460
5	Stephen "Steve00085" Burt	United Kingdom	6,167,321
6	Dara "Doked" O'Kearney	Ireland	5,734,509
7	alexos888	Canada	4,541,336
8	chrissop14	United Kingdom	3,425,337
9	Marcmks16	Sweden	3,110,958