Local poker player John Kagame has been on top of the field for a few hours now. This is one of his first poker tournaments, and he entered after a friend told him about it. Kagame typically enjoys ring games, and it appears that the long hours on the table are starting to make him tired. However, with just a few more hours to play Kagame is in good position to go into Day 2 with a good stack.
Still more than half the field is remaining in Day 1b of the Unibet Open London Main Event. While yesterday the average chip stack remained over 50 big blinds all day long, today the average stack of around 55,000 chips has dipped to around 46 big blinds.
Last night's trivia contest winner Nicholas Storm is in good spirits despite just losing a big hand to go from 62,000 chips to 20,000 when his was no match for his opponent's .
There may not be any bigger Unibet Open veteran than storm who estimates he has played in 20 different events in the tour's history. He mentioned he keeps coming back since taking part in the Unibet Open is like being part of a big family. He mentioned that he knows a lot of people, that Unibet staff are very nice, and that he feels at home during every event regardless of where in the world it is being held.
China's Jin Hui didn't have to travel as far as his home country to play in the Unibet Open Main Event as for the past three years he has been living in the United Kingdom.
Hui recently ran his stack up to 220,000 chips when he suffered a huge cooler when his flush ran into the king of all hands, the royal flush. Despite losing this huge monster six-digit pot, he was on the other side of a cooler when he flopped a set while holding . One of his opponents held , while another also flopped a set, but just slightly lower with his .
Hui's stack now is still well above average at 130,000 chips and is one of the players in contention to potentially be in the chip lead at the end of the day.
The Casino Challenge takes place on most stops on the Unibet Open. Just hours ago United Kingdom's Laura Simkute took down the Casino Challenge for a cool £10,000. The tournament host Rein Ostfelt shared with us from beginning to end the contest took seven hours with games played in blackjack and roulette.
The fourteen participants all qualified in online on Unibet, which not only included a chance at the £15,000 prize pool, but also free accommodations and travel money.
Among the bigger stacks in play is that of United Kingdom's Khatri Bhavin. The British poker player shared that he has been a card rack getting hand after hand. He has recently had pocket kings and pocket jacks twice each with the hands holding up.
United Kingdom's Ian Simpson has been near the top of the pack just about since the first cards were dealt over 10 hours ago. While most of the time Simpson has been on the winning ends of big pots and small ones, his stack took a small hit after losing a few smaller pots.
Simpson though is still among the leaders of the day, however, with 130,000 chips.
