Gold Leads Advancing 74; Hansen, Adeniya & Jenkins Fall on Day 1a
The Full Tilt Poker United Kingdom & Ireland Poker Tour (UKIPT) Galway Festival continued Thursday with the start of the €1,000,000 Guarantee Main Event. The €1,000+€100 buy-in tournament meant the event would need to attract 1,000 players to meet the guarantee, but a rare overlay is more than likely after a modest 231 players turned out for the first starting flight.
After ten one-hour levels of play, that number was reduced to approximately 74 with Alan Gold and his stack of 272,700 leading the way — that's nearly twice as much as the next closest competitor! We missed how Gold acquired all those chips, but he seemed to get most of them in the last two levels of the night where his stack seemed to increase exponentially.
Another man who finished with a big stack was Mark Spelman, who got many of his chips in the last level of the night when his 
won a 155,000-chip pot against Ali Abdallah's 
on a 
board. Talk about a nasty river! Spelman bagged 140,000 and is among the top stacks.
Others who advanced to Day 2 were FTP qualifier Miklos Soproni (175,900), PokerStars player Ben Bauer (142,600), star of Ireland's The Apprentice Cahal Heapes (50,400), Vitalijs Polukejevs (114,100), Max Silver (91,700), Keith Hawkins (63,100), Roy "The Boy" Brindley (58,100) and the star of the film Bet, Raise, Fold Danielle Andersen (37,600).
Unfortunately not everyone was fortunate enough to survive the day. FTP Professional Gus Hansen was among the eliminated. Hansen fell in Level 6 (200/400/50) on a board reading 
. Hansen had checked to Malta's Charlo Azzopardi, who proceeded to bet enough to cover the "Great Dane." Hansen, as he is prone to do, hit the tank and began talking to himself. "I did this to myself," he lamented before calling off his stack. Azzopardi then tabled 
for pocket rockets, which bested the 
of Hansen. With that Hansen took the long walk of loneliness out of the tournament tent, across the foyer and into the Players' Lounge where he played Pacman and talked to PokerNews' Laura Cornelius, which you can view by scrolling down.
Others who fell on Day 1a included Full Tilt Poker Ambassador Ben Jenkins, Frank Lillis, Surinder Sunar, Liv Boeree, Patrck Smyth, Barny Boatman, Ian Cordts, John Duthie, Peter Garrett, Lisa Hawkes, Shaun Hegarty, Conor O'Driscoll, Michael Frisby, Henry Port, Matthew Humphrey, Chun Ho Law, Con Collins and FTP Ambassador Martins Adeniya.
Adeniya, who talked to PokerNews in depth about his week spent in Galway as a FTP Ambassador, got the last of his chips in with the 
against Ben Bauer's 
. The board ran out 
and Adeniya took his leave in the last level of the night.
"I’m going out drinking tonight with a few of the boys and just a bit of relaxing outside of play," Adeniya said of his evening plans while adding that he now plans to play the FTOPS.
Day 1b will kick off at Noon local time and is expected to draw a massive field. Among those planning to attend are FTP Ambassadors Sinem Melin and Dermot Blain; FTP Professional and online legend Viktor “Isildur1” Blom; FTP UKIPT High Roller champ Sergio Aido; the fast-talking David “Devilfish” Ulliott; and Team PokerStars Pro and Triple Crown winner Jake Cody, just to name a few. Until then, good night from Galway!