A total of 186 players ponied up the £875 buy-in to enter the first of the two starting flights in the Unibet Open London Main Event. Just 51 players, or less than one-third of the starting field, advanced to Day 2 and they will join the other survivors from Day 1b's play on March 5 for when the combined field plays forward to the final table.
Currently, the Czech Republic's Jan Riha has a commanding lead with 298,800. Riha had the lead since the dinner break and never let up with his stack bouncing between 250,000 and 300,000 chips most of the time.
Also ending the day on a good note was Norway's Geir Reka Tollerud with an impressive 263,500 in chips, followed by France's Erik Le Goff in third place with 242,500 in chips.
The Koops family has a reason to celebrate after Day 1a as well, as identical Dutch twins Erik and Alexander Koops finished with 192,600 and 128,000, respectively.
Also still in contention is Frenchman Antoine Saout who is one of the most successful players to enter the field. Saout has approximately $4.4 million in career live tournament cashes with his claim to fame being a third-place finish in the World Series of Poker Main Event for about $3.5 million.
Unibet Poker also sponsored three eSports players today in Craig Shannon, Byron Bernstein, and JJ Janssen, plus Belgium's Charlotte Van Brabander.
The three eSports stars of Shannon, Bernstein, and Janssen all exited the tournament early, then Van Brabander exited a bit later. All four fell before the dinner break. Remko Rinkema interviewed the trio of eSports stars about not only their experiences in the Main Event, but also the previous day in the single-table sit-and-go Unibet Open London eSports Battle, which Van Brabander won.
Play will resume Friday at 12:00 GMT. One player expected to be in attendance is Unibet Poker Pro Quentin Lecomte. Stay tuned to PokerNews for continued live coverage.
After getting down to business and building up a stack, the day quickly ended for Arvydas Merfeldas after he went all-in with against Darren Fuller who held . Fuller's hand held propelling him to 200,000 chips while Merfeldas was one of the latest players to leave the tournament.
Also on the same table is Jan Riha who built his big stack up to 300,000 chips.
France's Antoine Saout might be the most successful poker player to enter Day 1a with almost $4.4 million in cashes. Almost $3.5 million came in 2009 when he finished in third place in the World Series of Poker Main Event.
Saout shared with us that he has been quietly building his stack without any real big hands.
Whenever there is a Unibet Open Main Event, one of the questions is whether Poland's Tomasz Kozub is on the final table.
So far today he is off to a good start quietly building his stack to 90,000 chips. With less than one hour left in action, his quest for another final table seems to be alive and strong. Despite being slightly below the average chip count, he still has plenty of play in his stack with 45 big blinds.
Over on table six, Jan Riha is still among the chip leaders. His stack went down slightly after losing some smaller pots.
Also on the same table is Arvydas Merfeldas who quietly built up his stack to 90,000 chips. Merfeldas shared that it was an accumulation of smaller hands to get him into the mix with a slightly above average stack.
We just heard back from some of the people that went for the Unibet sponsored welcome drinks. We are told that almost 50 players showed up to let loose while about 35 participated in a trivia quiz hosted by Remko Rinkema.
Unibet Open veteran Nicholas Storm from Denmark showed his skills and took down the quiz to win a ticket to the £250+25 buy-in Unibet Open Sunday Final. Two other players won a Unibet goodie bag for finishing in second and third places.