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Andrew Lichtenberger's last few thousand chips went into the middle in good shape, his 
ahead of Carlos Mortensen's 
. But the board came down 
for a chopped pot, and Lichtenberger remained woefully short on just 13,500. Mortensen stayed hovering on 110,000.
He seemed to be the only player at the table who did not find the chop particularly amusing.
John Tabatabai made it 1,500 to go preflop, and Nicolas Levi made the call in position. From the small blind, Jolmer Meelis squeezed in a reraise to 5,200, and that was enough to get Tabatabai out of the way. Levi, however, plunked out 30,000 chips, enough to cover Meelis. He got action, and Meelis was at risk (but in fine shape) as the cards were turned up:
Levi: 
Meelis: 
It's never easy with aces, it seems. The flop came 
to give Levi the flush draw, but he bricked the 
turn. The 
river was a much better card for him, filling in that club flush and earning him the knockout.
Levi looks to be the chip leader once again with about 190,000.
Nikolay Evdakov has had a rather poor start to the day.
He returned to a roughly 40,000 stack an hour ago, but it was at around 17,000 when we found him just now. Michael Schwartz had raised to 1,400 under the gun and Karim Jomeen had called in the cutoff before Evdakov called too from the small blind.
We were briefly distracted at this point as Andrew Lichtenberger was going all in on the other table (more on that in a moment), but when we returned the flop read 
and the size of the pot suggested that Evdakov had checked and then raised all in to a bet. Whatever happened, the other two players both folded, and Evdakov made a mini-recovery to a still relatively short 20,000.
With the field size increasing from last year to this year, that means there will be more prize money awarded to first place. This year's prize is worth £830,401. That's £28,798 more than last year and a positive increase that the WSOP and all poker players like to see.
Take a look at the graph to see the trend of first-place prize money awarded in the WSOP Europe Main Event each year. You'll see that there was a very large prize awarded of £1,000,000 to Annette Obrestad in 2007 before dropping off each year until it was kicked back up this year. That's thanks to the high amount of participation this year has seen with 346 players taking to action here in London.
Just making it to the money this year is worth £21,106 and a total of 36 spots will be paid out. Head to the payouts page to see all the payouts and here's a look at the final table payouts.
1st - £830,401
2nd - £513,049
3rd - £376,829
4th - £278,945
5th - £208,119
6th - £156,530
7th - £118,643
8th - £90,617
9th - £69,754
Vitaly Lunkin is up to 110,000 after cracking Paul Otto's pocket aces. All the chips went in pre-flop and very pretty looking king appeared on the flop for the Russian. Otto down to 8,000 as a result.
Both Boatman brothers made it through to Day 2.
Ross is on the table overlooking the stairs and just found himself involved in a pot after opening late position to 1,800. His neighbour, Ben Cherif, three-bet to 4,700, and Ross made the call. Both players checked the 
flop, but Ross took it down with a bet of 7,400 on the 
turn. He now has 90,000.
Barny, meanwhile, is doing similarly well. The elder of the siblings started the day with 73,200, but has since edged that figure up to 78,000.
From middle position, Kevin MacPhee opened to 1,600, and he found a call from big blind Antoine Arnault.
The two men went heads u to a flop of 
, and the action went check-check. On the turn, Arnault led out with a big overbet, 7,000 chips. MacPhee double-checked his hole cards and splashed the call into the pot. The 
river filled out the board, and Arnault moved all in for his last 15,200. The call from MacPhee came quickly.
Arnault showed up 
for eights full, and MacPhee nodded and counted out his losses. He's been more then halved, dropping to 23,000 while doubling Arnault.
When we arrived at the table, Adrian Passfield was already all in for mere pocket change, and a further raising war between Eli Elezra (cutoff) and Filippo Candio (button) had Candio all in too. Elezra, covering him by 20,000 or so, made the call.
Check this out!
Elezra:
Candio: 
Passfield:
"Well, it's not a bad spot," said the cheerful Passfield.
"Spades!" Elezra ordered the dealer.
Board: 
Bit of a sweat on the turn, there, but the aces held up. Passfield, who was glad he didn't pass and is still in the field, tripled up to a still very shaky 12,000, and looked rather pleased about it. Candio made a noise like a very relieved horse as he received 50,000 back, only slightly less than he'd put in; and Elezra walked off but will return to a 70,000 stack.
Adam Levy and Will Molson both just busted at the hands of Sam Trickett. According to Levy who stopped by to tell us what happened, the three players all got the money in preflop with Levy holding kings, Molson holding kings and Trickett holding aces.
The aces held and Trickett was able to add a nice bundle of chips to his stack. Tricket's up to about 135,000 now.
Yes, you heard it; Mike Matusow is running good and even he can't believe. Okay, so he's only played one hand but it was pocket aces and he managed to take all of Jonathon Shah's 20,000 stack.
