An impressive 509 entrants signed up for Day 1B of the EPT London Main Event, bringing the combined field to 848, which officially makes it the largest land-based poker tournament in UK history. As a result, the prize pool tops out at £4.1M, with some £900K of that going to the overall champion.
As on Day 1A, the action was fast and furious, with only 235 players left standing at the end of play. Claudio Cecchi emerged with the biggest stack at 237,500 chips, good enough to put him on top of the 381-strong field heading into Friday’s action (getting underway at noon local time). Big names like Phil Ivey and Danny Negreanu are also still in the hunt.
Of course, we’ll be watching how Bodog Network CEO Patrik Selin fares on Friday. The only major poker network CEO who routinely plays in high-profile land-based tournaments ended up spending a healthy chunk of his first day’s play seated at the ‘TV table’, so if he’s late getting to the venue today, we’ll assume it’s because he got held up in make-up and wardrobe.
