Main Event
Day 1b Completed
2010 PokerStars.com EPT London
Main Event
Day: 1b
Event Info
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
2010 PokerStars.com EPT London
Buy-in
£5,000
Prize Pool
£4,112,800
Entries
848
Level
33
Blinds
150,000 / 300,000
Ante
0
Official End of Day Counts (full)
![[user122824]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
237,500 | |
|
205,200 | |
|
181,400 | -1,600 |
|
171,900 | |
|
164,400 | -600 |
|
163,500 | 18,500 |
|
|
161,900 | |
|
153,300 | |
|
|
141,500 | |
|
|
141,300 | |
|
|
141,100 | |
|
137,500 | -13,500 |
|
|
134,600 | |
|
|
129,200 | |
|
|
128,100 | |
|
|
127,900 | |
|
122,200 | 28,200 |
|
121,100 | 11,100 |
|
|
119,300 | |
|
117,900 | -2,100 |
|
117,400 | |
|
115,600 | 60,600 |
|
|
115,300 | |
|
|
115,100 | |
|
|
115,000 |
Day 1b in the History Books
This one has been one for the record books.
After 339 runners crammed themselves into the ballroom for Day 1a on Wednesday, we wouldn't have guessed you could fit another soul in this room. When the floodgates opened, though, the players came streaming in at a clip this town has never seen before. An astonishing 509 runners joined the fun today, creating a total field of 848. That's a huge increase over last year's record-setting field, and this EPT London has once again broken its own record as the largest poker tournament ever held in the UK.
And it wasn't just a room full of online qualifiers and wannabe nobodies. Phil Ivey played! Still in town from his deep run in the WSOPE Main, Ivey came to play today, and it was, unsurprisingly, a smooth and steady climb up the scoresheet all day. He finished up in the top 25 or so, but we'll have to wait for the paperwork before we're certain.
Others who came (and survived) included Team PokerStars Pros Jude Ainsworth, Matthias and Christophe de Meulder, JP Kelly, Daniel Negreanu, Joe Hachem, etc. etc. There's really too many to list in one place.
It's easier to talk about those who've already been sent home. Johnny Lodden was one of the first casualties of the day, followed closely by Toby Lewis, Melanie Weisner, Dennis Phillips, Shane Warne, and everyone's favorite emo-haired Scandi, Viktor Blom.
Those lucky enough to make it to the end of the day with chips left were all playing for second place during the last level. As we just mentioned, Claudio Cecchi racked up a huge lead during the course of that last hour, skyrocketing his stack all the way up to 237,500 at night's end. That puts him more than 30,000 chips (a starting stack) in front of the second-biggest stack we could find, that of David Vamplew. Tony Cascarino, Kenny Hicks, and Max Steinberg are all well in contention to challenge that lead tomorrow with over 150,000 apiece.
Speaking of tomorrow, we've got a lot of work to do. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 players will reconvene here tomorrow, the survivors from the two starting days. It's another noon start time (sorry, midday), and it's gonna be a good one.
We're off to the bed or to the bar or something like that, but we'll see you right back here tomorrow to do it all over again and press on towards the easy money.
Big Stack Watch
Our last-minute scan of the room finds a new potential chip leader.
Italian Claudio Cecchi is sitting with every bit of 250,000 as the last few hands are dealt, and some quick investigative work tells us how it happened.
Cecchi was sitting pretty patiently for most of the day until he was the recipient of three straight big pots. The first one saw him double up when his pocket aces found a customer with pocket kings. Just moments later, Cecchi got his money in again when he flopped top set against an opponent with a combo draw. The draw never came through, and Cecchi found himself with plenty of chips to sit still.
He would not sit still, though. A few hands later, he ran his pocket queens into an opponent's pocket kings in another preflop all in. Cecchi managed to bink a queen on board to win the pot and vault him all the way up to the chip lead. We'll have to wait for the bags to come out, but we'll call him the chip leader for now.
Also on the radar:
David Vamplew ~200,000
Tony Cascarino ~180,000
Max Steinberg ~165,000
Kenny Hicks ~155,000
Alain Roy ~145,000
Three More
The clock has been paused, and we'll play three more hands at each table before we call it a night.
Nguyen Wins, Trickett Has to Borrow Cash
The Evidence
"YESSS!!!! ALL YOU CAN EAT, BABY!"
The Hypothesis
Men Nguyen was a) drinking, and b) winning a hand.
Upon further investigation, though, we discovered that although part a) was indeed true, part b) was not. Nguyen hadn't been involved in a hand at all, but rather had just won £1,000 from Sam Trickett betting on the color of the flop. It had come down all black, and Nguyen had won. Trickett had had to borrow the £1,000 from Jason Mercier at the next table, and was engaged in trying to borrow another £1,000 to run it again.
Conclusion
Degenerates, the lot of them.
Just Located at the Back of the Room
...or some of them located by the stairs, newly busted.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
95,000 | 33,000 |
|
|
70,000 | 30,000 |
|
64,000 | -28,000 |
|
30,000 | 9,000 |
|
25,000 | |
|
Busted |
Liebert Leaves
We tried. We tried to squeeze in between the two camera crews and the dozen or so media and spectators that had gathered around the table to see what was going on, but we could not.
What we could see was Kathy Liebert standing up and wishing her table luck as she made her exit. GG, Kat.
De Mel Departs
Priyan de Mel has been riding the short stack all day -- perhaps in part due to the fact that he's been paying more attention to the boxing match on his £500 iPad than on the £5,000 poker tournament he's playing in. In any event, he got the last of his chips into the middle preflop when he looked down at 
. An unknown American-sounding chap across from him put de Mel to the test, racing for the knockout with 
.
The 
flop left de Mel dead to an eight, and he couldn't find either of them. The 
turn and 
river sealed his fate, sent packing about a half level before making Day 2.
Gomes Not Going Anywhere
Alex Gomes was all in before the flop with 
, committing his last 18,200 chips to the pot. An opponent across the table looked him up with 
, behind but drawing live.
The board ran friendly for the Team PokerStars Pro from Brazil: 
. Ship him a double up, and put him right at 40,000 now.