The remaining 68 players are all getting up and stretching for the last break of the day. Play will resume at 800/1,600 with a 200 ante before going up to 1,000/2,000 with a 300 ante for the final level of the day. The average stack will remain steady at over 50 big blinds when play resumes shortly.
Earlier we mentioned that Unibet paid the buy-ins for three eSports stars in Craig Shannon, Byron Bernstein, and JJ Janssen with all of them busting out early from the tournament.
Remko Rinkema interviews all three players about their experiences both today as well as yesterday when they played in the Unibet Open eSports Battle, a single-table sit-and-go, with other eSports stars.
Level: 9
Blinds: 800/1,600
Ante: 200
Lithuania is one of the smallest countries in the world with under 3 million people. However, that isn't stopping the country from representing itself in the Unibet Open London Main Event.
In addition to Arvydas Merfeldas who is still hanging along with around 45,000 chips, Edgaras Kisielius is now one of the chip leaders with around 174,000 chips. He mentioned that it hasn't been one particular pot, but just winning a bunch of small ones that has propelled him. Kisielius also shared that he used his VIP points he earned on Unibet Poker to purchase his way into the Main Event.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
174,000
174,000
|
174,000 |
|
45,000
15,000
|
15,000 |
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.
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.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
250,000
30,000
|
30,000 |
|
|
90,000
45,000
|
45,000 |
Level: 10
Blinds: 1,000/2,000
Ante: 300
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.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
90,000 |
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.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
130,000 |
