EPT London 2014: 368 Players Advance to Day 2 of the Main Event

Two of the first flights for the EPT London 2014 Main Event are now in the books and the total number of survivors amounts to 368. After Day 1A saw a turnout of 224 players, 123 of whom advanced to play today, Day 1B attracted nearly double the number.

Total of 441 players took their seats in the magnificent Grand Connaught Room in Covent Garden, bringing overall number of entries for the London Main Event this year to 665 so far. The registration remains open until the start of Day 2 later today, so we will probably see a few more players take it to the felt before we have the official number of players and, accompanying that information, the overall prize pool.

Day 1B attracted many big names as is typical for the London stop and some faces in the crowd included French star Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier, online tournament beast Chris Moorman, the pride of England Sam Trickett and the young rising star Dominik Nitsche. All these made it through the day, although some with less workable stacks than the others. We will not lack ladies in the field today either, as Liv Boeree and the first two-time EPT winner Victoria Coren-Mitchell both made it through with very respectable stacks in a six-figure territory.

Quite a few didn’t make it though, so they would probably be happy even with a short stack today - if they had an option. Some of the familiar faces who made an earlier exit include Olivier Busquet, Brett Angell who couldn’t maintain his great run from the UKIPT Grand Final, Tom Middleton, Randal Flowers, Griffin Benger and others.

Of the survivors, the man coming with the biggest hopes and the biggest chipstack is Georgios Zisimopoulos. The Greek bagged 171,500, which, interestingly enough, was not enough to put him ahead of the Day 1A chip leader Anatoly Filatov. Finishing neck to neck with Zisimopoulos was the Swede Leo Nordin, who had 169,125 in his stack when the last river was dealt.

Total of 368 players advanced to the Day 2 and they will be joined by those taking the option to late register before the start at noon today. The field has already well surpassed the last year number of 604 players, so the eventual winner will be taking home a bigger prize than the defending champion Robin Ylitalo. As for Ylitalo, he will also be returning today and the dream of defending the title is still alive, although he has some work to do with a below average stack.

As EPT11 London Main Event continues, so does the PokerTube coverage. We strive to bring you the fresh interviews and impressions from the Grand Connaught Room and bring you as close as possible to the experience that is European Poker Tour.