On the board of 
, November Niner John Dolan fired out 1,625 and his opponent made the call. The river completed the board with the 
and paired it with fours. Dolan fired 3,500 and his opponent tank-called. Dolan tabled the 
and won the hand to get a nice, early boost to his stack.
![[user76023]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
This one might well trump the other.
Ludovic Lacay
David Weisberger
Robert Mizrachi
Heather Sue Mercer
Nenad Medic
McKlean Karr
James Akenhead
Tony Cousineau
William Thorson
David Levi has his work cut out for him today as he's facing off against a bunch of young up-and-coming superstars. Martins Adeniya, Jason DeWitt, David Peters (who already final tabled an event here), John Tabatabai (runner-up in 2007) and then Tom Marchese are all seated at his table. This could certainly mean for some fireworks.
Defending WSOP Europe Main Event champion Barry Shulman is here today and he gave the official "Shuffle up and deal!" introduction to kick things off. Seated on Shulman's immediate left is Wesley Pantling followed by Rudy Blondeau. A couple seats over from that, Brandon Adams is seated. These players should make Shulman's title defense a little bit harder and we'll see how he does throughout the day.
Two-time bracelet winner Frank Kassela reached a three-way flop of 
, but quickly side-stepped out of the way as his check was pursued by a bet of 750 from Felipe Ramos, and a raise to 1,625 from the button. Ramos made the call.
The 
turn and river killed any action, Ramos taking the pot with 
to the button's 
, much to the latter's annoyance.
After his near bracelet miss in the opening event, Andrew Pantling has exploded out of the blocks like Carl Lewis with a stick of dynamite up his rear here in the Main Event, his stack increasing almost two-fold to around the 55,000 mark just half way through level one.
The board read 
, and after Philipp Gruissem had led for 4,500, and Terje Augdal flat-called, Pantling check-raised to 16,000. The initial aggressor matched the raise, but Augdal chucked away his hand.
Pantling tabled to take the pot, and the chip lead.
James Mitchell has had a great start to the day, increasing his stack by almost 50% - one recent hand being mainly responsible. Mitchell had raised to 300 in early position, and picked up two callers before another player minimum-re-raised. This opened up the door for Mitchell to repop it to 2,800, which he did fairly quickly. Only Cary Atkins made the call.
Flop: 
. Check to Mitchell, who bet 3,500. Immediate call.
Turn: 
. Check to Mitchell, who bet 8,000. Much less immediate call.
River: . Check to Mitchell, who bet 10,500. No call.
James Mitchell, Irish Open Champion last year and pre circuit success live cash regular at the Vic seems to be a poker Jack of all trades and has impressive results already. Too young for Vegas when he first started doing well on the Euro live circuit, he presumably has his sights set on a bracelet too, handily one played for right here in his native London.
Praz Bansi opened to 250 from UTG+1 and got called by Kevin Boudreau in the small blind. The flop came 
and Boudreau check-called a bet of 400 from the two-time bracelet winner before both checked the turn.
The 
came on the river and Boudreau fired out 1,100 and Bansi gave it a minute before making the call, only to muck to his opponent's 
. Having flashed his hand briefly to us, Bansi told us, "I did well not to bet the turn, I smelled something..."
We caught up with the action on fourth street as the board read 
. It was a heads-up pot, and Brian Powell checked to Tommy Vedes. The latter made a bet of 875, and Powell slowly called.
The river drew another check from Powell, and Vedes paused before making a bet of 1,150. Powell took a long time to stare, but he eventually snuck in a check-raise to 2,600 straight. Vedes didn't like it, but he splashed in the call.
Powell tabled for the trips, and it was easily the best hand from the looks of it. Vedes had been working his stack upwards to start the day, but that little hit puts him back to 31,000.
Whilst I await our next slice of action, I can't help but observe that this room upstairs boasts more stars than the night sky with every table filled with recognisable faces from the world of poker.
On the aforementioned Table of Death, there is only one player I couldn't name, later identified as David Weisberger.
Despite his lack of familiarity, he can least celebrate his first PokerNews' tag. Woot woot!
