The anticipated return of PartyPoker on the live poker scene just keeps getting better by the day. Friday wouldn’t be an exception, as there was an action-packed schedule of activities at Aspers Casino. Not only were there two flights of the £500 Main Event on the schedule, but also the hyped Players Party, which attracted many poker enthusiasts who sought a good time away from the tables.
Off to the Races
Out of all the golden nuggets listed above, the poker.pro live coverage primarily focused on Day 1b of the Main Event. Friday in London equals fun, and thus, this was deemed to be one of the largest starting flights of the tournament. This would prove to be right, as the number of entries had reached 190 by the time late registration closed. But we’ll get to that eventually; first, let’s take a look at what went down during the earlier stages of the tournament.
The tournament kicked off at noon, but when play reached a somewhat more significant stage at 14:00, the poker.pro team was on-site, ready to cover every ounce of action going down in the impeccable poker room at Aspers.
And boy, did the action ramp up. Certain players were able to accumulate many chips at a rapid speed. One of them was Tristan Chaplin, who already at Level 4 did what may have been the call of the tournament. Another one was Armandas Aurila who, during his third hand of the tournament, managed to get on the right side of a cooler situation. Aurila waved the reporters over to tell us the hand a few minutes later; it’s always nice when players have interesting things to share with us.
The Crucial Stage
Eventually, the players went on a 30-minute dinner break, and when they returned, late registration was closed, and it was announced that 48 players would join the 37 from yesterday’s Day 1a in tomorrow’s Day 2.
While play kept on going, there were a lot of laughs and banter from the TV table, where the PartyPoker London Invitational Sit N’ Go was in full swing. Players such as the Staple brothers, Glenn Brown, and Day 1a chip leader Alexander Georgie were battling it out in a 9-handed turbo Sit N’ Go. Konstantin Zerdev would be crowned the winner of this affair, claiming seven out of the eight bounties. The Sit N’ Go was live-streamed, and George Sandford was the primary commentator, bringing various guests on to the broadcast.
Back to the Main Event, where the atmosphere, naturally, got a little more tense as the Day 2 bubble approached at rapid speed. One looking to secure a big stack was Martin Hellmuth, who finished third in yesterday’s £150 Mini Main Event. Displaying the great poker skills that we saw yesterday, Hellmuth built up quite the stack. Unfortunately for him, during the last half hour, Christoph Knight called one of Hellmuth’s bluffs and took a large chunk out of his chips.
The Next Chapter
Eventually, the bubble burst, and the players could exhale. They had made Day 2 and are set to return tomorrow, when the battle will commence. Tomorrow, the ITM stage of the tournament will be reached.
In this current moment, Day 1c is still going on, and the hyper turbo-flight Day 1d will kick things off tomorrow at 11:00, before Day 2 commences at 16:00. While we don’t know the amount of players that will return to Day 2 as that depends on the outcome of the two currently unfinished flights, we know that the clock will roll back to Level 12 with blinds 1,500/3,000, and a 3,000 Ante.
We also know that 70 % of the Day 2 field will be in the money, and that 17,5 % of the field will move on to Day 3.
What we don’t know yet is the chip counts from Day 1b. As soon as we receive these, we will share them with all of you (the same goes for 1c and 1d, obviously). We can already reveal the top 5 biggest stacks, though, where the aforementioned Knight tops the chart after his encounter with Hellmuth.
Once again, we’re delighted that you’ve all been following along with the action today, and we can’t wait to be back again tomorrow. We will kick off the live coverage with the start of Day 2 at 16:00. See you then!
