Julian Thew is up to about 80,000 after getting very lucky in a large pot. Blind on blind, he had raised a 3,600 bet to 11,200 before his opponent moved all-in. Thew sighed and called with dominated as he was by the small blind's .
The poker gods had other ideas though and the board ran out leaving the Brit with a quiet but sheepish smile.
...At least for the discerning gentlemen in the room. Lovely Fatima Moreira de Melo, newly signed up as a Team PokerStars SportStar, is nowhere to be seen, her seat now occupied by Morten Erlandsen instead.
Connor Drinan just exited in the last hand before the break. A typical vs the of Olivier Douce. We're not sure where the money went in, but the was very conclusive.
Laurence Houghton: 46,000
Anthony Roux: 40,000
Davidi Kitai: 18,000
JJ Liu: 21,000
Jonas Molander: 16,000
Juan Pastor: 29,000
Kati Jerney: 37,000
Liya Gerasimova: 40,000
Matt Woodward: 83,000
Mel Judah: 42,000
Noah Boeken: 21,000
Peter Hedlund: 38,000
Pieter de Korver: 26,500
Surinder Sunar: 55,000
William Thorson: 18,000
Ivan Demidov: 30,000
Guillaume de la Gorce: 31,000
With registration now officially closed, we have some interesting facts for you. A total of 478 players entered this year's event. That's 141 less than last year's field. Even with a field size smaller by approximately 23%, there are a whopping 37 countries represented from all over the globe.
The United States had the most players in the field with 55. Bunched together in the next tier are Italy with 46 and France, Germany and Spain all with 44. Rounding out the top ten countries with most entrants are the Netherlands (30), Russia (29), Finland (21), Sweden (21), and Canada (18). The United Kingdom, Denmark and Romania all had numbers in the double digits as well.
To branch things out globally, players have flown in from Venezuela, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Israel and New Zealand.