Day 1a Wraps Up with Golzyt on Top
Day 1a of the 2011 PokerStars.com European Poker Tour London Poker Festival Main Event has come to a close after a starting flight of 280 players hit the felt to kick off the action. At the end of the night, under 200 of them remained with the official number coming once all the bags have been tallied.
Leading the charge after an amazing day of poker is Lukasz Golzyt with 211,600 in chips. Some of the other notable big stacks include Mustapha Kanit with 152,200, [Removed:40] with 143,600, Raul Paez with 136,500, Lev Marymsky with 133,800 and Sandor Demjan with 121,100.
With a hefty field coming out for this first day of play, we unfortunately lost some important players to the game. John Duthie, Guillaume Darcourt and Dave "Devil Fish" Ulliott all fell early on while Phil Collins and Xuan Liu hit the rail a bit later in the day.
Of those advancing to Day 2 include Barry Greenstein and the one and only Doyle Brunson, who is here in London for his first-ever EPT event. Jake Cody, Sebastian Ruthenberg, Nick Binger, Darren Elias, Arnaud Mattern, Mickey Petersen and Fatima Moreira De Melo are also moving on.
Day 1b will commence tomorrow at noon. Just like today, the players will play eight levels without a dinner break, but 15-minute breaks coming after every two levels. You can expect the field tomorrow to soar past the 500-player mark in hopes of setting another record here in London. Be sure to head right back to PokerNews for all of the live coverage from the felt.