2010 PokerStars.com EPT London

Main Event
Day: 1b
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

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.

Tags: Men NguyenSam Trickett

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

Tags: Claudio Cecchi

Day 1b in the History Books

Claudio Cecchi
Claudio Cecchi

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.

Official End of Day Counts (full)

Player Chips Progress
Profile photo of Claudio Cecchi
Claudio Cecchi
237,500
Profile photo of David Vamplew gb
David Vamplew
205,200
EPT 1X Winner
Profile photo of Tony Cascarino
Tony Cascarino
181,400
-1,600
-1,600
Profile photo of Claire Renaut fr
Claire Renaut
171,900
Profile photo of Max Steinberg us
Max Steinberg
164,400
-600
-600
Profile photo of Jude Ainsworth ie
Jude Ainsworth
163,500
18,500
18,500
Profile photo of
161,900
Profile photo of Kenneth Hicks us
Kenneth Hicks
153,300
Profile photo of
141,500
Profile photo of
141,300
Profile photo of
141,100
Profile photo of Alain Roy fr
Alain Roy
137,500
-13,500
-13,500
Profile photo of
134,600
Profile photo of
129,200
Profile photo of
128,100
Profile photo of
127,900
Profile photo of Daniel Negreanu ca
Daniel Negreanu
122,200
28,200
28,200
Profile photo of JP Kelly gb
JP Kelly
121,100
11,100
11,100
Profile photo of
119,300
Profile photo of Phil Ivey us
Phil Ivey
117,900
-2,100
-2,100
Poker Hall of Famer
Profile photo of Kevin Eyster us
Kevin Eyster
117,400
Profile photo of Paul Foltyn gb
Paul Foltyn
115,600
60,600
60,600
Profile photo of
115,300
Profile photo of
115,100
Profile photo of
115,000

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Main Event

Day 1b Completed