2010 PokerStars.com EPT London

Main Event
Day: 1a
Event Info

2010 PokerStars.com EPT London

Final Results
Winner
Winning Hand
a3
Prize
£900,000
Event Info
Buy-in
£5,000
Prize Pool
£4,112,800
Entries
848
Level Info
Level
33
Blinds
150,000 / 300,000
Ante
0

Two Girls, One Pot

Celina Lin
Celina Lin

We were standing watching the table that Kevin MacPhee is the big stack at, when all hell broke loose. Within seconds, a hoard of cameras, media, and players huddled around the table as Vicky Coren and Celina Lin got their chips into the middle heads up with each other, and each having about the same chip count to start the hand. Fittingly, it was a race:

Lin: {Q-Hearts} {Q-Clubs}
Coren: {A-Hearts} {K-Hearts}

"The only two women at the table," someone piped up.

"Yeah, and she has the ladies," someone else said. "Versus ace-king of hearts, too!"

Fellow Team PokerStars Pros Coren and Lin wished each other luck, and they each suggested just chopping the pot right there and moving on to the next hand. They frown on that sort of thing here, however, and it was off to the board:

{2-Hearts} {K-Diamonds} {J-Diamonds} {8-Hearts} {7-Spades}

Lin lost the race, and when the stacks were counted down, it was her 26,400-chip stack that was covered by just 2,000, issuing her the marching orders. She's out, and Coren has doubled up over 50,000.

Tags: Celina LinVicky Coren

Final Four!

We're now playing the final four hands of the evening before play comes to a close.

Meanwhile, William Thorson is over the 100,000 mark, calling a 13,700 bet on the river of a {9-Hearts} {5-Clubs} {2-Diamonds} {10-Clubs} {2-Clubs} with just {9-Diamonds} {7-Spades} to scoop.

Tags: William Thorson

On Your Buss

Jerry Buss raised from the button, making it 2,500 to skate. Both blinds called, including Jasper Te Selle in the big. The flop came {2-Hearts} {Q-Diamonds} {7-Hearts}, and the action checked to Buss. He moved all in for 16,100 total, and the small blind snap-called. Te Selle ducked out, and the cards were on their backs with Buss at risk.

Showdown
Buss: {K-} {Q-}
Opponent: {K-Hearts} {8-Hearts}

Turn: {A-Hearts} (bink!)

River: irrelevant, as Buss was drawing dead and eliminated from this EPT. It sure was nice to see him over here on this side of the pond, though.

Tags: Jerry Buss

End of Day 1a

Thomas Bichon - among the chip leaders
Thomas Bichon - among the chip leaders

Today the players fell quicker than the raindrops outside on this greying Thursday in London town. 339 players deposited £5,000 into the swelling pot for their chance to take over from Aaron Gustavson, who beat Peter Eastgate heads up last year.

By the end of the day, over half the field were eliminated as the aggression in poker has now reached such a level that many would regard it as simply reckless the way they threw their chips away today.

Team PokerStars Pros Vanessa Selbst, Luca Pagano and Lex Veldhuis were all casualties today as were Sorel Mizzi, Chris Moorman and Jeff Madsen. Thomas Bichon is in among the chip leaders with 185,000 while Greg Raymer and Barry Shulman are also still in the mix. The chip leader at the end of the day though is Soheb Porbandarwala with a huge 218,600 and is believed to be the only player over the 200,000 mark.

Full chip counts will be following later tonight while we will be back here tomorrow at 12pm local time for Day 1b, which is expect to get over the 400 mark in terms of runners which would put the tournament in the running for the biggest field in UK poker history.

Official Day 1A Counts (full)

Player Chips Progress
Profile photo of Soheb Porbandarwala us
Soheb Porbandarwala
218,600
Profile photo of Konstantin Bucherl
Konstantin Bucherl
187,900
Profile photo of Thomas Bichon fr
Thomas Bichon
185,000
Profile photo of John O'Shea ie
John O'Shea
184,400
12,400
12,400
Profile photo of Joep van den Bijgaart nl
Joep van den Bijgaart
167,600
42,600
42,600
Profile photo of
152,800
Profile photo of
152,700
Profile photo of
149,300
Profile photo of
145,400
Profile photo of
144,900
Profile photo of
144,000
Profile photo of
130,500
Profile photo of Barry Shulman us
Barry Shulman
129,200
6,200
6,200
Profile photo of William Thorson se
William Thorson
125,600
33,600
33,600
Profile photo of Chance Kornuth us
Chance Kornuth
124,800
29,800
29,800
Chip Leader Coaching
Profile photo of
123,300
Profile photo of Benny Spindler de
Benny Spindler
120,100
40,100
40,100
Profile photo of
118,800
29,800
29,800
Profile photo of Rumit Somaiya
Rumit Somaiya
116,400
Profile photo of
116,100
Profile photo of
113,400
Profile photo of
112,100
Profile photo of Jamie Burland gb
Jamie Burland
112,100
Profile photo of Alex Kravchenko ru
Alex Kravchenko
111,000
62,000
62,000
Profile photo of Tom Marchese us
Tom Marchese
110,200
10,200
10,200

Read full

Main Event

Day 1a Completed