Although the Main Event started only this afternoon, most of the players arrived on Thursday with 888poker welcoming them with an inaugural toast and a very special welcome freeroll.

As it usually happens at the 888live events, all the plus ones who have joined the online qualifiers had the chance to compete for a piece of the action by joining a freeroll qualifier to the Main event. The satellite started at 22:00 and attracted a field of 70 entries. Right three-and-a-half hours later, Manuel Hauer, Jan Heinrich, and Julian Kleinheinz were the ones who left the tournament room with a free entry to today's $50,000 guaranteed Main Event in their pockets.

Good luck to them - and to all the other 101 players in the tournament right now.