Day 1b in the Bag
Day 1b of the 2011 PokerStars.com European Poker Tour London Poker Festival Main Event is in the books after the second and final starting flight completed their first eight levels of play. It looks to be Benny Spindler leading the way in this pack with 160,800 in chips at day's end. There also looks to be around 260 players moving on from this flight of 411 players, but all of that information won't be verified until we receive the chip counts later tonight. Once we do, we'll post them.
Although last year's record of 848 players wasn't broken, 691 for this year isn't a bad number at all. Packed into the field today were plenty of big names including Team PokerStars Pros Daniel Negreanu, Vanessa Selbst, Jason Mercier, Joe Hachem, Angel Guillen, Victor Ramdin and David Williams. Negreanu and Selbst were eliminated on the day, while the other players named will be moving on. Mercier wrapped up the day with 99,200 in chips and wrote on his bag "Future EPT London Champion". Whether or not that means this year is still yet to be determined.
Other notable eliminations that occurred on Day 1b included Ross Boatman, Bill Chen, Eddy Sabat, Jean-Robert Bellande, Daniel Cates, Liv Boeree, Nicolas Levi, Bertrand Grospellier and Leo Fernandez.
Some of those moving on with some heavy chip bags are Raj Vohra (156,600), Steven Warburton (142,300), Martins Adeniya (132,500), Sorel Mizzi (129,100), Justin Bonomo (126,100) and Wade Townsend (119,800).
Day 2 will commence tomorrow at noon where the remaining players from both starting flights will combine. Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews for all of the live coverage starting then!