6:55pm: Big stacks
As level eight gets under way these are the players who are currently 'bossing it' here in Edinburgh:

Kevin Whelan, 107,000
Anthony Sinott, 99,000
Grant Smith, 98,200
Davie Gallacher, 92,700
Roberto Morelli, 91,000
Kyle Maguire, 88,200
Mark Baxter, 81,300
Tobias Hariefeld, 72,500
Dominic Nitsche, 71,000

PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT5 Edinburgh: Marc Convey and Nick Wright. Photos by Mickey May

Spying the tartan carpet in the restaurant area where we, the media, are camped out for the week, reminded us it's been too long since we were here last. It wasn't the tartan, or the carpet specifically, but the city of Edinburgh. Thanks to Barney - the storm, not Boatman - it's windy and rainy outside, but who cares in a city so beautiful, where the people friendly and there's great poker to be played.

The last time the UKIPT was in town Scotland had still to decide whether or not to leave the United Kingdom. Back then, in January 2014, Dean Huchtison made himself known to the wider poker world. He was one card away from exiting but came storming back to defeat Team PokerStars Pro Liv Boeree heads up. We're not politically minded here on the UKIPT (despite an acronym closely... anyway) but we're glad to be back. For the record Hutchison made it through with 84,200, but he's not chip leader.

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That honour belongs to PokerStars qualifier Kevin Whelan with 272,000. Whelan is 35 years-old and from Liverpool, but now lives in Aberdeen. Poker for him was a hobby, but some good results made him take things more seriously (those results included a second and third place in the Big 55 on PokerStars). His key hand of the day was, as he put it, 'a big blind special' against Dominik Nitsche. He had 6-4 and Nitsche - who was under-the-gun, had A-4. There was betting on the 4-4-10 flop, Nitsche bet again on the six turn, Whelan shoved and Nitsche called.

He obviously made the most of a Day 1A which took place over twelve 45-minute levels. At bagging up time 29 remained from the 115 players who started. Other players who will be back for Day 2 include: Michael Mcgee (269,600), Roberto Morelli (204,700), David Gallagher (162,000), Ryan Barnes (161,500), Kyle Maguire (132,000), Dara O'Kearney (102,600) and Nitsche (55,600).

Rapinder Cheema has already won a UKIPT title this year, in London back in January. One can tell the man loves to play poker and today he wore that emotion across his face as he stack dipped, rose, dipped, then rose one last time before fatefully dipping too far. He was joined on the rail by notables such as: Daragh Davey, Rupert Elder, Thomas Partridge, Leon Louis, and Robbie Bull.

Tomorrow's a new day and it's called Day 1B. Everything about it is the same as today but a new bunch of players arrive for us to stare at. Mr UKIPT, Team PokerStars Pro Jake Cody, is flying up in the morning; reigning EPT Malta champion Niall Farrell is homecoming; Kelly Saxby flew up this evening on a non-propeller plane (something she was very pleased about); Dan Stacey will be in the house looking for back-to-back UKIPT wins; Tom Hall and last season's fifth-place finisher Tomasz Raniszewski will be here, and everyone's hoping that Ludovic Geilich gets his act together to get on a flight from Amsterdam.

Play kicks off at midday GMT, so join the reporting team back here then.

Photos are copyright of Mickey May. Someone saw her sneaking a bottle of the Very Hot Peri Peri sauce out of Nandos earlier. Steal her photos and that sauce is a suitable weapon in her hands!

6:15pm: Busted by dinner
The players are on a 75-minute dinner break. The following players have busted so far today:

Kristria Nagaraju, Michael Jones, Thomas Dunwoodie, Jamie Caira, Jonathan Barr, Chuc Khuu, Mike Finan, John Cozens, Adrian Gray, Nicholas Galtos, David Mccallum, Ryan Meilke, Jamie Rutherford, Beyazil Zorlu, Nabil Caballero, Andrew Mckenzie, Anthony Lynn, Anthony Mullen, Jamie Oconnor, Andrew Hedley, Junman To, Alan Gold, Andrew Dobson, Bobby Zhang, Carl Harris, Steiner Edduson, Patrick Clarke, Ian Otobo, Christopher Gatley, Junman To, David Weeks, Lucas Oliver, Richard Pearson, Thomas Hemming, Sebastian Malec, Tom Hall, Anthony Galloway, Vilazslaw Filip, Antonis Poulengeris, Robert Brown, Cheng Zeng, Ben Dobson, Foyzul Hussein, M Pereira, Selim Ogan, Gregor Macbrayne, Mike Bourke, Ian Bosley, John Clark, Jason Mcconnon, Marley Thomas, Diego Gonzalez, James Shea, Elena Slover, Peter King, Lewis Jeal, Gary Bertram, Angel Francisco, Ho Yin Lee, Simon Pham, Andrew Turnbull, John Clements, Paul Gough and Drew Buchanan. -- MC

5:55pm: Chips
Below are the stacks of a number of the notables in the Day 1B field:

Vicente Delgado, 85,000
Thomas Ward, 60,000
Jake Cody, 59,500
Niall Farrell, 51,500
Gareth Chantler, 49,000
Ben Jenkins, 30,100
Dan Charlton, 24,500
David Clarkson, 24,450

Paul McTaggart, 17,600
Ciaran Heaney, 15,000
Jack Ellwood, 14,000
Nick Abou Risk, 13,625
Kelly Saxby, 13,300
Max Silver, 12,350
Dan Stacey, 12,000
Jamie Dale, 8,600

5:45pm: Ferguson doubles through Worley-Roberts
A big double up for Andrew Ferguson to tell you about, with Deborah Worley-Roberts the player giving him extra ammunition to play with.

It all started with a raise to 1,400 from under-the-gun, Worley-Roberts was next to act she called and Ferguson then three-bet to 3,100 from middle position. The original raiser folded but Worley-Roberts asked for a look at Ferguson's stack before calling.
The flop came [4c][5d][Tc], Worley-Roberts checked and Ferguson moved all-in for 9,200. "I might make a loose call just to get rid of you," said Worley-Roberts before adding. "You're just too bloody good sometimes."

About ten seconds elapsed before she said: "This is really loose but I call," Ferguson showed [Ks][Kc] and the American said: "That's bad, that's really bad, I'm going to need runner-runner," as she opened [Kd][Qd].

The [Kh] turn left Worley-Roberts drawing dead and the [3h] completed the board. "I just keep giving you chips," noted Worley-Roberts. She's dropped to about 50,000 after losing that pot. --NW

5:40pm: Cody gets value out of Clarkson
Jake Cody and David Clarkson are two of the better-known players at their table and are sat next to each other. The latter took the seat vacated by the recently eliminated Owain Carey.

Around 5,500 chips sat in a small pile next to five cards that read [th][ah][5c][7d][9c]. Clarkson checked from the small blind and watched as the Team PokerStars Pro took his time before betting 2,100. Clarkson had a mini tank and called but mucked when he saw Cody's [ad][8h]. He mucked and then tapped his arm to say good bet. Both players have around 43,000. -- MC

LEVEL UP: BLINDS 300/600, ante 75

5:25pm: Brutal bust for UKIPT champion
Chris Ferguson took down UKIPT Newcastle in Season 3 of the UKIPT but he won't be winning a second title this week as he's run into cruel lady variance here in Edinburgh.

Lost 90bb pot lvl 5 KK < A7 aipf then AA < JT all in turn J346 riv J #UKIPTEdinburgh was no fun 😞💸 #bustooo

— Chris Ferguson (@chrisferg89) November 20, 2015

5:15pm: Ward gets there, gets paid
Thomas Ward tried to win pot with position, couldn't, but got there in the end and has a 64,000 as a result.

Mark Duguid opened from mid position and was called by Ward (cutoff), along with the big blind. The flop spread [4h][jd][3s] and the action checked around to Ward who bet 1,200. Duguid was the only caller to the [9c] turn where both players checked. The river was the [th] and Duguid led for 2,000. Ward paused for a minute and then raised to 10,700. Duguid tanked for a couple of minutes and then called but mucked upon seeing Ward's [kd][qd] for the nuts.

Duguid mucked and shod his head. Upon questioning, he confirmed to Ward that he held top two pair. He dropped to 11,700. -- MC

5pm: New sheriff in town
Kev 'ace' Butler is up to 135,000 courtesy of a double elimination. The PokerStars Blog only caught the end of the hand but Butler held pocket queens and the pair held up against Mani Eimarsson and Lars Stockenschinedier - who both had ace-king - in a pot worth around 65,000. As a result of winning that hand Butler is now the chip leader. --NW

4:50pm: Big stack watch
Some bigger stack are starting to emerge now the tournament has reached the sixth level of the day. Below are the ones spotted:

David Antelo, 110,000
Neil Irving, 92,000
Lucas Dimsa, 82,000
Haukur Bodvarsson, 81,000
Paul Fowler, 67,000
Mateusz Zbikowski, 66,000
Hak-Hyun Lee, 63,000
Kim Clay, 63,000
Paul Mchenry, 61,000

LEVEL UP: BLINDS 250/500, ante 50

4:18pm: Kateian turns nuts, gets flushed away on the river
Scott Kateian came all the way from Seattle to get flushed away on the river. He came by and told the blog about his exit hand.

He raised to 900 from the cutoff with [js][9s] and called after David Antelo three-bet to 2,800 from the small blind. The flop fanned 8-7-6 with two diamonds and Antelo check-called 3,300 before both players checked the [th] turn. The river was the [td] and the chips went in. Kateian's nut straight on the turn couldn't hold up to Antelo's flush on the river with [ad][5d] and the latter passed 100k. -- MC

4:10pm: Delgado all smiles
Vicente Delgado let a cheeky smile across his face after he busted an opponent to rise to around 50,000.

After a mid position limp and a raise to 1,500 from the cutoff, the Spaniard called from the button along with Thomas Dunwoodie in the small blind. The limper then decided to move all in for 12,000 and was only called by Delgado who held [as][th]. His opponent opened [9c][9h] but failed to survive a board than ran [ah][8d][kc][jc][jh]. -- MC

4pm: Flushed
Did William McClure break a mirror whilst walking under a ladder at the same time as a black cat crossed his path? Who knows but he just suffered some incredibly bad luck in a hand against Vilazslaw Filip. The latter was all-in for about 8,000 with [Ad][Qd] and McClure had given him a spin with [Ah][Qh].

This pot would end in a chop over 85% of the time, with each player likely to win the entire pot about 7.5% of the time. The first two community cards were blanks but the [Kd][8d][7d] were the final three and meant that Filip saw his stack given an unlikely fillip. -- NW

3:50pm: Hold'em Manager
Team PokerStars Pro Jake Cody's table has broken and he's been placed to the right of Owain Carey. The two are both huge football fans, supporting Man Utd and Spurs respectively and went straight into discussing the England team.

"It's got to be Kane with Rooney just behind him," said Carey to Cody extolling the virtues of both of their sides main strikers. "I reckon Barkley should be the lynch pin of our midfield," he added.

"I'd play Barkley behind Kane," replied Cody who it seems would have no problem ditching his beloved United's star striker, who also happens to be the England captain. Big call that Mr Cody but then football, like poker, is all about opinions. -- NW

3:40pm: Big names (and stacks) from the main tournament room
The players below are notable for the size of their stack, the reputation behind it, or both:

Diego Gomez, 70,000
Niall Farrell, 41,500
Paul McTaggart, 36,200
Thomas Ward, 27,500
Kelly Saxby, 25,200
Steiner Edduson, 23,600
Jamie O'Connor, 23,300
Owain Carey, 22,750
Alan Gold, 20,025
Jack Ellwood, 19,800
Ciaran Heaney, 17,700
Dan Stacey, 16,300
Dan Charlton, 14,000
Alex Ferguson, 11,600

LEVEL UP: BLINDS 200/400, ante 50

3:30pm: Fraser Macbusted
Mateusz Zbikowski had had lots of good results on the UKIPT and EPT, helping him to amass cashes totalling over $100k. He's looking at a deep run here too, getting up to 75,000 after eliminating Fraser MacIntyre.

The two players had made it to the river where a [3s][qd][7h][8d][ah] board rested. Zbikowski led for 5,900 and then called quickly when the Scotsman shoved for around 27,000.

MacInytre opened [3c][3d] for a set but Zbikowski had him beat with [qc][qs] for a bigger set. -- MC

3:15pm: Notable stacks in the secondary room
Here's how some of the names and notables in the secondary tournament room are getting on:

Gordon Huntly, 58,000
Thomas Dunwoodie, 46,000
Gareth Chantler, 42,000
Deborah Worely-Roberts, 36,000
Max Silver, 33,000
Jake Cody, 30,000
Ben Jenkins, 27,900
Andrew Ferguson, 27,300
Jonathan Rees, 26,700
Harry Lodge, 23,000
Mike Panteli, 22,100
Pablo Gordillo, 22,000
Vicente Delgado, 21,500

2:55pm: Early chip leader most probably
Twelve players from Iceland have all made the trip here to Scotland to play the main event, and one of them, at least, must be very happy he made that decision.

Haukur Bodvarsson has gotten off to a blistering start and is mostly chip leader heading into level four:
--MC

Only 2 hands I played in level 3, 88 and KK stack: 69k #UKIPTEdinburgh pic.twitter.com/M7Xy9OL8J0

— Haukur M Bodvarsson (@zickread) November 20, 2015

LEVEL UP: BLINDS 150/300, ante 25

2:30pm: Break time
Three levels down, nine to go. The players are now on a 20 minute break. -- NW

2:25pm: Beer good, jäger bad
UKIPT5 London High Roller winner Owain Carey has just taken his seat and he's one table away from Alex Ferguson. The two are good friends and indeed were chatting at the bar whilst Carey ate lunch before taking his seat.

The two are now both back at the table but their conversation, and drinking, has continued. "Shall we have a beer a level?" asked Ferguson to Carey.

"Sure, I could do 20 beers and be fine," shot back Carey. "But no jäger."-- NW

2:15pm: Five players have hit the rail before the first break
Conghai Wang was one of the first to go after a bad beat. He got his chips in with aces versus kings and saw a king hit the flop to send him on his way. Harry Steare also busted from his table and further afield, Dusan Privoznik, Anthony Gray and one other were given their marching orders.

There are also a few short stacks around the room, one of them belonging to Elena "The Groupie" Stover:
--MC

Down to 4K chips from 25K [insert generic bad beat story]. 20bb stacks are my speciality though ;) #lookout #UKIPTEdinburgh

— thegroupie (@thegroupie) November 20, 2015

1:55pm: Bad seat, good stack
Being drawn to the left of Jake Cody is at least preferable to being on his right, but it's still far from the ideal seat draw in a tournament such as this. That's the situation that poker writer/poker pro Gareth Chantler finds himself in but he's off to a very good start as he's already upped his stack to 37,000. The PokerStars Blog witnessed him winning a big pot to climb to that mark.

We only saw the river action but with a complete board of [Jc][Qc][4d][6h][6h] on the felt Chantler called a bet of 5,000 and the third player in the pot did likewise. The Canadian showed pocket fours and both his opponent's mucked, one of whom claimed to have called with queen-jack. --NW

LEVEL UP: BLINDS 100/200 ante 25

1:43pm: Coffeegate scandal features Jenkins and rocks Edinburgh
What's a man got to do to get a coffee round these parts? A lot if your name is Ben Jenkins.

The Full Tilt player tried to order coffees at 11:58am but was told the bar (legally) couldn't open until midday and he better come back in five minutes. Team PokerStars Blog turned up at 12:05pm to order a round of teas and Jenkins, who hadn't left the bar in the meantime, now found himself behind lots of other players who were getting served first.

The Blog (being connected round these parts) got the tea order in quickly and did the right thing by ordering his coffee, and two for his friends, whilst making our order. Problem solved, right? No.

The Blog's teas were promptly delivered to media base and all was assumed well. Play started at 12:15pm and Jenkins was forced to take his seat without the shot of caffeine his body desired.

12:30pm - "I've still not got my coffee!" said Jenkins to the blog. "I'm running bad in life but hopefully I'll run good for two days at the tables," he spun. Then he spotted a waitress and she motioned she would bring them over after he requested for what must've been the third time.

Luckily, as you can see from the picture below, Jenkins finally got his coffee and all is well! -- MC

1:30pm: Enter Firaldo
If you've been under a rock or on Mars for the past few weeks you might've missed the news that Niall 'Firaldo87' Farrell took down the EPT12 Malta Main Event on October 31st.

That victory was worth €534,330, the Scotsman will be the first to admit that he got lucky on the penultimate day, but then taking down a poker tournament without luck is damn near impossible. The final hand of the tournament was pretty special and if you've yet to see it you can feast your eyes on it below.

Amazingly Farrell is still searching for his first UKIPT Main Event cash, although he has won a side event on this tour, as he finished first in the £330 UKIPT4 Isle of Man side event in November 2013. -- NW

1:20pm: More familiar faces
We're packing them in here in Edinburgh and another lap of the tournament room has revealed plenty more big names here on Day 1B of the Main Event.

Dan Stacey won the last UKIPT Main Event and he's now in his seat, he's sat two to the left of Alex Ferguson so let's hope he has some headphones with him. On the adjacent table Jack Ellwood has pitched up at the same table as Kelly Saxby. The UKIPT Manchester runner-up is off to a good start as we saw him take down a small pot that didn't go to showdown.

Whilst Ellwood may have fallen at the final hurdle in his hunt for a UKIPT title, Alan Gold managed to get over the line at UKIPT4 Galway where he defeated Paul Febers heads-up. He's one table along from Jamie Dale, who finished third here in Season 2 and we've also spotted Ben Dobson.

Lastly, we got word this morning that Max Silver and Nick Abou Risk were travelling over from Dublin to play this event. They've got three UKIPT Main Event titles between them and have now arrived. They've both been seated in the secondary area. -- NW

1:10pm: Early woes for Pearson
Richard Pearson is one of the most jovial characters you'll find on tour; just give him a bit of space right now.

"Loving life!" he said ironically.

A look as his stack (6,500) revealed the reason behind his current state of mind. A problem with pocket aces, and jacks versus queen-three explains the journey to that point. -- MC

LEVEL UP: BLINDS 75/150

12:56pm: Social media is your friend
Anyone playing the Main Event, or any other event this festival, can get involved in the online banter taking part on Twitter, just use the hashtag #UKIPTEdinburgh. We'll post some of the best ones on the blog. Some examples of tweets today include:
--MC

Just on route to #UKIPTEdinburgh with a mixture of nerves and excitement bring it on

— Michael Bourke (@Mikebourke888) November 20, 2015

Just sat down for #UKIPTEdinburgh

— Keith Cummins (@Keith_Cummins) November 20, 2015

At least I'm on the left of him #JakeCody #UKIPTEdinburgh

— Keith Cummins (@Keith_Cummins) November 20, 2015

Trying to get ready for #UKIPTEdinburgh day 1B today but I think I'm gonna be a little late because Nigella is on <3<3 #UKtv

— thegroupie (@thegroupie) November 20, 2015

Exciting day ahead, playing in day 1b of the #UKIPTEdinburgh 😀

— Paul McHenry (@Replicant211) November 20, 2015

12:40pm: Meanwhile in the secondary area...
As mentioned below play is split over two areas, we put a lot of thought into what to call the 'other' area and after much debating settled on 'secondary area'! Genius!

Anyway, there are currently 11 tables in use in what is a brightly lit and spacious part of the casino (got to keep the photographer happy) and that will likely continue to grow as players take advantage of late registration, which is open until the end of level four which will be around 3.30pm.

Dotted amongst the tables are a host of familiar names, there's online wizard Vicente Delgado, part of a strong Spanish contingent who live in London, a couple of tables along you'll find Ben Jenkins. The Brit is resplendent in shirt and tie (top button still done up).

The liveliest table is though the one that contains Jonathan Rees, Andrew Ferguson and Deborah Worley-Roberts. The American usually has a booming voice that you can't help but be drawn to, However she's decidedly croaky today due to a recent work trip. The three players were discussing the players hotel - which is right next to Edinburgh Zoo - and Ferguson, who lives in the city said: "It's nice to be near the pandas and all, but I wouldn't even class that area as being in Edinburgh!"

Elsewhere in that section Harry Lodge and Mike Panteli are settling in for a day at the tables. -- NW

12:30pm: It's a biggie today
The tournament room at the Genting Casino here in Edinburgh is split over two different areas and both are in use today due to the larger field size. At the start of play yesterday only seven tables in the main tournament were in use. All 15 are in use at the start of play and have been organised in a way that makes it much easier to navigate around, making everyone a lot happier.

A few faces already in their seats include Thomas Ward, Kelly Saxby, Alex Ferguson, Diego Gomez and Scott Katelan, who's come all the way from Seattle. -- MC

12:15pm: Shuffle up and deal
Cards are in the air for Day 1B. -- MC

11:55pm Start delayed
The start of play has been pushed back until 12:15pm.

11:45am: Welcome to UKIPT5 Edinburgh Day 1B
A total of 115 players played on the first flight yesterday, but judging by the line at the registration desk this morning, that number should be a lot bigger for today's second flight.

Kevin Whelan ended Day 1A as chip leader on a massive 272,000, closely followed by Michael McGee on 269,600. The only other player over 200k was Roberto Morelli (204,700) and if anyone Day 1B players hope to reach that mark they're going to need a fair bit of skill, sprinkled with a dusting of luck.

The skill part we have covered. You want EPT champions? We've got them in the shape of Team PokerStars Pro Jake Cody and Niall Farrell. The latter is the most recent EPT champion after he won the Malta stop last month for €534,330 and "Firaldo87" kept up the good form by coming sixth in this week's Super Tuesday for $21,420. You want UKIPT champions? We've got those covered too. Buddies, Max Silver and Nick Abou Risk, are travelling over from Dublin together and have three tour, and a High Roller title, between them. Those four will be joined by a bunch of other players all capable of reaching those dizzy heights.

Up bright and early for #UKIPTEdinburgh day1b!

— Jake Cody (@JakeCody) November 20, 2015

Cards will be in the air in 15 minutes so join us back here then. -- MC

UKIPT5 Edinburgh key facts:
- 25,000 starting stack
- Blinds starting at 50/100 for 250 big blinds
- Levels are 45 minutes on Day 1 and they'll be 12 of them. From Day 2 onwards levels increase to 60 minutes.
- A total of 29 players made it through Day 1A. The field will then combine for the first time on Saturday, before (hopefully) playing down to a final table and then to a winner on Sunday. Cue mad celebrations and swigging of Iron Bru from the trophy.
- No re-entry here, this is an old school straight freezeout.
- Full UKIPT5 Edinburgh schedule here.

Fancy playing a UKIPT? There are always plenty of online satellites, click here to get an account.

PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT5 Edinburgh: Marc Convey and Nick Wright. Photos by Mickey May

11:45pm: Play ends for Day 1B
That's Day 1B in the books. A full wrap of the day's play will be up on the blog shortly. David Gomez ended the day as chip leader on 262,700. -- MC

11:25pm: Last three hands
Each table will play three more hands before play ends for the night. -- MC

11:17pm: Lynskey gets richer with king high
Alex Lynskey and his girlfriend Angelina Rich come from Australia and the United States respectively but have been travelling around Europe for the past two months playing poker and taking in the sites. Both have an impressive list of results. For example, Lynskey made the final table of this year's Aussie Millions, finishing 9th for AU$120,000 and in the same festival, Rich won a tournament ring by taking down the bounty event for AU$34,455.

Both look in great shape to make Day 2 here in Edinburgh as well. Rich has added another 30,000 to her stack reported below and Lynskey aggressively got his stack up around 90,000 at table Firaldo.

Firstly he squeezed all in after a raise to 3,000 and a call. Both opponents folded. The next hand, he raised to 4,000 from mid position and was called by Christopher Robertson in the cutoff and Gary Laing in the big blind. The flop fanned [ac][jh][jc] and Lynskey continued for 5,700. Lang was the only caller before both checked down the [7c][ad] turn and river. Land opened [qh][th] but lost out to Lynskey's [kd][th]. -- MC

10:55pm: UKIPT London champion Cheema wins the button and £1,750

UKIPT5 London champion Rapinder Cheema dusted off busting the Main Event yesterday by entering, and winning, the £110 entry Turbo Win the Button event last night. Sixty players entered helping to create a £5,820 prize pool. The top eight made the money and finished as follows:
-- MC

LEVEL UP: BLINDS 1,000/2,000, ante 300

10:43pm: Duguid definitely out this time
Mark Duguid was misreported as being out in the blog earlier after he mislaid his media ID card. That card was returned to him but he didn't need it for too much longer after he busted to Angelina Rich, who moved up to around 100,000.

He opened to 3,500 from early position before Rich three-bet to 5,700 from the next seat. He four-bet shoved for 34,000 and Rich snapped him off.

Duguid: [kc][qd]
Rich: [ad][kh]

The board ran [5d][7s][7c][as][kc] to see her make two pair. -- MC

10:25pm: Fallers
Almost 60% of the Day 1B field have now been eliminated with: Ciaran Heaney, Campbell Foggo, Felix Bleiker, Adaisteinn Karlsson, Hannah Swales, Paul Hizer, Fraser Bellamy, Martin Hanham, Sean Gartswood, Alan Chrzaszcz, Melanie Simpson, Lukasz Owczarz, Gerald Fitzsimmons, Barry Burns, Graeme Smith, Yonatan Sagis, Kevin Butler, Daniel Charlton, Jean Dumartin, Hak-Mann Lee, Gardar Hauksson, Usman Ullaq, Alex Todd. Sameer Singh, Craig Sayers, David Wilkes, Andrew Laurie, Gordon Huntly and Chung Tran the latest players to have their hopes of victory in Edinburgh dashed. --NW

10:20pm: Firaldo in control
Niall Farrell has the presence of a man that is so at ease with life at a poker table. To be fair, if someone was ever going to feel that way then it would be a month after winning an EPT.

He and Neal Donaldson have been stuck in the farthest corner of the room all day together and the latter just got put through the ringer by Farrell. He opened to 2,500 from second position and was called in the next seat before Donaldson squeezed to 6,500 from the hijack. Farrell peered over to see Donaldson's stack and he said he about 65,000. Farrell's response was to four-bet to 14,700. That was enough to force out the third party, but not Donaldson, who five-bet to 24,000 pretty quickly.

Farrell was playing a stack of around 50,000 and six-bet them all. Donaldson whispered, "Sick!" to himself, thought for a minute, and slid his cards towards the dealer.

Farrell lost a small pot the very next hand to settle on 74,000. -- MC

LEVEL UP: BLINDS 800/1,600, 200

10:10pm: Delgado dented
A big pot just played out between Vicente Delgado and Javier Gonzalez who both hand decent stacks too so it could've got a lot bigger had the cards fallen differently.

Pre-flop it was Delgado who started the action, raising to 2,600 from under-the-gun, Gonzalez then three-bet to 6,600 from the small blind, Delgado four-bet to 15,600 and Gonzalez smooth called leaving himself about 55,000 behind, Delgado covered.

On the [7h][Tc][6d] flop Gonzalez check-called a bet of 12,600, both players then checked the [2c] turn and [2h] river with Gonzalez's [Jd][Jh] proving best at showdown. He's up to around 90,000 whilst Delgado dropped to 75,000. -- NW

10pm: Big names, mixed stacks
Plenty of notable names still left in this tournament as they approach the business end of Day 1B, including:

Andrew Teng, 159,000
Harry Lodge, 77,000
Vicente Delgado, 75,000
Niall Farrell, 74,000
Tomasz Raniszewski, 66,000
Ben Jenkins, 62,000
Andrew Ferguson, 57,300
Jake Cody, 45,300
Thomas Ward, 39,500
Ciaran Heaney, 30,000
Gareth Chantler, 14,700
Alex Ferguson, 13,500

News on how Farrell got his stack up to 74,000 will follow shortly. --NW

9:48pm: Queens and kings cost Debs her tournament life
Deborah Worley-Roberts was looking glum on the rail after busting so the blog had a word. She briefly explained how she had queens and kings back-to-back, lost them both, and found herself on the rail.

She raised from the small blind with queens and called after her opponent In the big blind three-bet. The flop came ace high and she let her hand go.

The very next hand, she had kings on the button and three-bet them. The big blind then four-bet and she clicked it back after the original raiser folded. That left her with 30 big blinds to play with and her opponent set her in for them.

She said she came very close to folding them but told the table, "Only good players can fold kings and I'm not sure I'm good enough," before calling. He had aces and she was out. -- MC

9:35pm: This is live poker
Poker scribe/pro player Gareth Chantler has been tenderly nursing a short stack for some time and had dropped into the danger zone by the time he made his move.

There was a raise to 2,600 from the hijack by Jan Mueller and Chantler then moved all-in from the big blind for 15,000 total. There was no snap call - which must've made Chantler feel good - indeed Mueller asked for a count and then agonised over his decision before folding.

"He's not been greedy," said Mueller to the player on his left before adding. "If it was online I'd have called." -- NW

9:30pm: Double Dode
Dode Elliot has a stack approaching 100,000 after he won a big, crucial flip.

He raised with [ad][kd] and called all in for 42,100 after an opponent in the small blind three-bet all in with pocket eights. The board ran [as][4d][qs][jh][2s] to make him top pair. -- MC

9:23pm: Six-figure stacks
The players are back in their seats for the last session of the day - three more levels. Here are the big stacks:

Dariusz Marcinkowski - 180,000
Andrew Teng - 155,000
David Antelo - 152,000
Dominic Fabianczuk - 131,000
Christopher Robertson - 126,000
Danis Mannov - 116,000
Tommy Noble - 113,000
Conghai Wang - 110,000
-- MC

LEVEL UP: BLINDS 600/1,200, ante 200

9:02pm: End of the level, start of the break
The players have been sent on a 15 minute break as level nine has just ended. When they return they'll play the final three levels of the day. --NW

9pm: Latest exits
As the blinds rise it's no surprise that the pace of exits is picking up. Just 126 players remain on Day 1B and unfortunately for followers of: Daniel Merrilees, Hugh Cairnie, Stuart Connelly, Jamie Dale, William McClure, Melonie Finan, Dominic Mahoney, Alexios Zervos, Charles Russell, John Burns, David Clarkson, Paul Green, Connie Kirkwood, Sean McKechnie, Daniel McAuley, Deborah Worley-Roberts, Gavin Keane, Peter Stuart and Krzyszstof Jacyk it's bad news as they're all out. --NW

8:55pm: Wood uses his one time
Stephen Wood was all-in pre-flop with [ad][Kd] and up against an unknown opponent's [qs][qc]. His shove was for just over 16 big blinds and before the dealer dealt the community cards he said: "One time!"

We all know that means 'one more time' and the Poker Gods seemed to listen as the [8h][5d][4h][Th][Ah] board meant Wood doubled up. Only time will tell if it was a good spot to use his one time. -- NW

8:52pm: Saxby downed
After busting, Kelly Saxby said she just had one of those days where little fell into place for her.

In her final hand she raised to 2,300 from early position and then called off for around 18,000 after Joseph Mcginley moved all in for around 23,300 from the small blind.

Mcginley: [jd][js]
Saxby: [8s][8c]

The board ran [kd][6s][9s][jh][4s] to make Mcginley a set. -- MC

8:45pm: Who would want Delgado to their left?
Vicente Delgado was described as a cheeky chappie in the blog earlier but, if you were sat to his right, you'd probably describe more as a pest. Just ask Andrew Teng.

He raised from the cutoff and Delgado called in the next seat to see a [7h][3d][ad] flop appear. Teng continued for 2,500 and Delgado called to the [8s] turn where both players checked. The river was the [9s] and Teng checked to face a 20,000 bet from Delgado which was worth more than twice the pot. Teng, for obviously reasons, didn't like it and folded after a minute. He dropped to 130,000 whereas the Spanish whizz moved up to 84,000.

A short while after that hand, Jack Ellwood was seen leaving the table after busting. -- MC

8:35pm: All in the same room
We had so many players today on Day 1B that the players were split between two areas. It's taken almost nine levels but all the players left in are now in the main tournament room. There's 15 tables in use there. --NW

Blinds up: 5000/1,000, ante 100

8:25pm: Ellwood making those treble up moves
He had to make moves, and Jack Ellwood did just that. He was very happy with the outcome.

He moved all in for 8,100 from mid position and when the action got to Andrew Teng in the hijack he flicked over Ellwood's stack so he could see how much it was. The dealer gave Teng a warning for that action and Teng wasn't happy about being told off. He then went into a two-minute tank before calling. Vicente Delgado was in the next seat and needed little time in reraising to 27,700.

"Here we go! Treble up time," said Ellwood when he saw the isolation move. Teng folded and the cards were on their backs.

Ellwood: [ad][kc]
Delgado: [ah][js]

The board ran [8d][ks][9d][2h][9h] to make the Brit two pair. Delgado dropped to 83,000. -- MC

8:15pm: Gone but not forgotten
We're down to just 164 players from the 260 who started today and the following are among the 96 who've hit the rail: Warren Guest, Gregory Chambers, Darren Harris, Hallor Sverrisson, Gary Gracey, Ross Loggie, Lukasz Fraczek, Michael Hart, Gudmundar Ragnarsson, Brynjar Bjarkason, Stephen Fenton, Michael Zijan, Mark McGovern, Yin Ohn, Keith Cummins and David Gillies. -- NW

8pm: Teng's stack almost tufat
Andrew "tufat' Teng has emerged as one of the big stacks in the room since dinner break. He's up to 158,000.

"I got them off him," said Teng pointing at fellow British pro Jack Ellwood. The latter paused awkwardly for a moment and then broke into a smile. Ellwood only has 10,000 chips to play with so will be making moves sooner rather than later. -- MC

7:55pm: Kelly Saxby doubles through Kev Butler
When you're all-in and at risk, standing up always works (apart from when it doesn't work) and it just proved successful for Kelly Saxby.

The American shoved for 10,300 from early position with [As][9h] and she got it through all but Kev Butler in the big blind who made a trivial call with pocket kings.

At this stage Saxby stood up, clocked that the PokerStars Blog was on the scene and jokingly ribbed that we were going to get her exit hand. The [Ah][9s][2d] flop connected squarely with her hand and Alex Ferguson playfully said: "Sit down."
"It's not over," replied Saxby.

"Sit down," echoed Deborah Worley-Roberts from an adjoining table (I don't think she could even see the cards). The [6s] turn and [Ad] river further improved Saxby's hand and she did now sit down. "You should never celebrate early," said Saxby as she stacked her chips.

That hand drops Butler down to around 60,000, which is someway from his peak of 135,000. However, whatever happens it's been a remarkable UKIPT Edinburgh already for Butler as he qualified for just £10 in 3x-Turbo re-buy satellite and managed to win his seat without a single re-buy or add-on. -Where else can you have this much fun for £10? -- NW

7:47pm: The king is dead, long live the king
The most recent UKIPT winner, Dan Stacey, is no more, so they'll be no back-to-back champion here in Edinburgh.

The action folded to him in mid position and moved all in for around 8,500. Reece Barnes was sat on the button and only had twice as much as the Isle of Man champion but found a hand to move all in with as well. The blinds folded and the cards were flipped up.

Stacey: [qs][jh]
Barnes: [ac][kd]

The board ran [4c][9s][8h][7h][5h]. Stacey left without a word spoken. --MC

7:30pm: Winner of UKIPT Edinburgh to receive £49,600
A total of 260 players elected to play Day 1B of the UKIPT Edinburgh Main Event, add them to the 115 who played yesterday and two players who were no shows and the total number of runners for this event is 377.

Between them they created a prize pool of £255,983 which will be shared between the top 55 finishers. The winner will take home £49,600 whilst a min-cash is a not to be sniffed at £1,255. You can see the full payout structure below.

UKIPT5 Edinburgh key facts:
- 25,000 starting stack
- Blinds starting at 50/100 for 250 big blinds
- Levels are 45 minutes on Day 1 and they'll be 12 of them. From Day 2 onwards levels increase to 60 minutes.
- A total of 29 players made it through Day 1A. The field will then combine for the first time on Saturday, before (hopefully) playing down to a final table and then to a winner on Sunday. Cue mad celebrations and swigging of Iron Bru from the trophy.
- No re-entry here, this is an old school straight freezeout.
- Full UKIPT5 Edinburgh schedule here.

Fancy playing a UKIPT? There are always plenty of online satellites, click here to get an account.

PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT5 Edinburgh: Marc Convey and Nick Wright. Photos by Mickey May

If Day 1A was the amuse-bouche, Day 1B was definitely a much anticipated starter as 260 poker players hungry for a UKIPT title rocked up to the Genting Club casino in Edinburgh for 12 levels of spicy action. Between them, the two no shows and the 115 players who entered this tournament on Day 1A they created a juicy prize pool of £255,983. The powers that be ran the numbers through the Centrally Automated Stars Hub (C.A.S.H Machine) and it was decreed that min-cash in this event will be worth £1,255, that the loser of the final hand on Sunday will collect £31,490 and the winner of this event will take home £49,660, a trophy and don't forget about the novelty cheque. You can see the entire payout breakdown here.

As the saying goes, you can't win a tournament on Day 1, but whilst that's unequivocally true when a tournament is four days long, you can undeniably build a great platform for a deep run during the opening stanza. No one enhanced their chances of being here at the business end of the tournament today better than David Gomez. He ended the day with a bag-busting 262,700, which is slightly less than Day 1A's chip leader Kevin Whelan, who amassed 272,000. The Spaniard cracked aces with kings early on and never looked back as he built and built throughout the day. The likes of Denis Rosenov Marinov (218,400), Javier Rodriguez (208,600) and Dariusz Marcinkowski (175,000) will also sleep soundly tonight, as they all put in a decent shift at the tables and were handsomely rewarded for it.

There was just one representative of Team PokerStars in the field today and it was Mr UKIPT himself as Jake Cody flew the flag with pride. With 10 cashes in UKIPT/UKIPT Series Main Events he's second only to Thomas Ward in that chart (Ward also played today). Despite that impressive record it's fair to say that Cody has enjoyed a number of frustrating opening days on this tour in recent memory where he's found himself constantly grinding a shortstack. Today though was not one of those days.

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He quickly grew his starting stack of 25,000 to 30,000 and padded it further until he lost a 100,000 chip pot. "I got it in with the nut flush draw against top pair and a flush draw on a [Js][8s][6s] flop and missed," he told the PokerStars Blog. The triple crown winner later won two flips to recover to an end of day 62,600 and chasing a 11th Main Event cash. The aforementioned Ward, who has 12 to his name so far, will also be back with a stack of 57,300. Other notables who made it through include: Andrew Ferguson (109,600), Alex Lynskey (86,800), Andrew Teng (79,000), Seth Webber (70,800), Ben Jenkins (56,600), and Gareth Chantler (28,000).

Of course not everyone was as lucky, good - or more likely a combination of the two - as those above. It looked for a while like we might have a fairytale story on the UKIPT as Kev Butler stormed into an early lead, growing his stack to 135,000 at the mid-point of day after picking up queens and knocking out two opponents who both had ace-king. The PokerStars qualifier had got into this event for just £10 in a 3x-Turbo re-buy satellite and had managed to win his seat without re-buying or adding on. A hat tip to Ward for unearthing this story and letting the PokerStars Blog know about it. Unfortunately for Butler his stack came crashing down and he was eliminated before the end of play. He was in good company though as in the final throws of the day EPT12 Malta champion Niall Farrell was knocked out whilst earlier on the likes of Ludovic Geilich, Thomas Dunwoodie, Jamie O'Connor, Alan Gold, Steiner Edduson (one of ten players from Iceland in the field today!), Tom Hall, Chris Ferguson, Owain Carey, Jack Ellwood, Dan Stacey, Deborah Worely-Roberts, Kelly Saxby, Gordon Huntly, Pablo Gordillo, Fraser Macintyre, Vicente Delgado, Max Silver and two-time UKIPT champion Nick Abou Risk were also knocked out.

The 72 who did make it through will join the 29 survivors from Day 1A when play starts at noon on Saturday. The plan will be to play 10 one-hour levels which should get us down to the final two tables if not the final table. The overnight chip counts and seat draw will be posted on the blog overnight and also tweeted from the @PokerStarsBlog account. You can catch up with all today's action by clicking on the links below, but for now so long, see you tomorrow. Levels 1-7 Levels 8-12 All photos are copyright of Mickey May, she hasn't had her daily dose of Nandos today (other chicken based restaurants available) so will go clucking mad should you steal them without permission. Credit her and her eggcellent images if using them please.

You want chip counts? We've got chip counts! Get 'em here.

6:47pm: Dinner break
The players are on a 60-minute dinner break. There are 26 players still in and they are led by Mike McGee on 770,000. Benjamin Burnhillis is the only other player over 700k, on 705,000. -- MC

6:45pm: Defending champ knocks out his mate
Dean Hutchison won this title in Season 4 and he's still going well, on about 400,000, partly due to busting his friend Kyle Maguire.

They went four way to a jack high flop with two hearts and the two of them ended up all in. Maguire held a queen high flush draw but Hutchison had the nut flush draw. The board bricked out and Hutchison won with ace-high. -- MC

6:40pm: Burnhill wins a big one
From early position Benjamin Burnhill opened to 18,000 and Alan Brown, who was the big blind, was the only caller. On the [9s][4d][Js] flop Burnhill c-bet 25,00 and Brown smooth called. The latter changed tack on the [Qh] as he led for 58,000, Burnhill considered his options and elected to call. The [Qs] completed the board and there was no backing down from Brown as he bet 104,000. It didn't take Burnhill too long to call and he was first to show, opening [Jc][Jd].
"Aye, that's good," said Brown as he mucked his cards. "It wasn't good on the turn though," he added. After that pot Burnhill is up to 705,000 whilst Brown drops to 247,000. --NW

6:35pm: Laid back Elliott finds a double
Dode Elliot has doubled to around 285,000 after winning a flip versus Christopher Robertson. The latter tanked before calling and all that while, Elliot just sat, chilled, and looked at something on his phone.

Robertson opened to 17,000 from mid position before Elliot three-bet all in for 134,000 from the next seat. Robertson seemed to build himself up before calling.

Robertson: [as][jh]
Elliot: [tc][td]

The board ran [5s][6c][9c][4d][kd] to see Elliot safely stay alive. -- MC

6:25pm: Down to 29 players
Just 29 players remain in the Main Event with Ben Jenkins, Jonathon Prested, Einar Einarsson
John Aitken and Dominik Fabjanczuk the latest players to bust out.

We caught the Fabjanczuk hand live, the Pole shoved for 140,000 with [9d][9c] and Dariusz Marcinkowski re-raised all-in with [Ks][Kd] and everyone else folded. A [3c][4d][5s][Qd][As] board kept the bigger pair in front and sent Fabjanczuk to the rail. --NW

6:20pm: Skill game
Sometimes poker is just about getting a big hand at the same time as someone else gets a slightly worse one...

Up to 450k after aa > qq. 30 left. Average 315k #UKIPTEdinburgh

— Dara O'Kearney (@daraokearney) November 21, 2015

6:15pm: High Roller event will award £27,700 to the winner
The Single Re-entry £2,200 High Roller event kicked off at midday today and attracted 42 entries (37 unique players) creating an £81,480 prize pool. The top six will get paid and the cash will be divided up as follows:

1st. £27,700
2nd. £19,150
3rd. £12,220
4th. £9,370
5th. £7,320
6th.. £5,710

Team PokerStars Pro Jake Cody, Max Silver, Daragh Davey, Nick Abou Risk, Niall Farrell and Ludovic Geilich all entered. The last two of these players have hit the rail though. The players are on their dinner break and 26 remain. -- MC

I'm the worst.....GeeGee HighRoller ;( #UKIPTEdinburgh

— ludovic geilich (@Gr4vyBo4t) November 21, 2015

6:05pm: Corrigan doubles through McGee again!
Michael McGee is Paul Corrigan's personal ATM at the moment as Corrigan just doubled through him again, fortunately McGee can afford it as despite losing the hand below he's still the chip leader.

In the hand in question Corrigan three-bet shoved for 139,000 over the top of a 17,000 chip open and a smooth call. The original raiser folded but McGee got a rough count and then called.

McGee: [Td][Ts]
Corrigan: [Ad][Kc]

The [Qc][Ks][5c][8c][9d] board meant Corrigan doubled to around 300,000. --NW

6pm: Updated chip counts
Below are some updated chip counts of some of the 34 players who are still in the Main Event. The chip lead still belongs to Michael McGee who's got 900,000. We're updating the chip count page as often as we can and that's where you can find complete chip counts.

5:50pm: Cold finish for Aaron Spence
If you're short and you find king-queen in the small blind in an unopened pot, you're happy to get it in. Just hope the big blind doesn't have big-slick. Unfortunately for Aaron Spence, that happened.

He moved all in for 55,000 and Angelina Rich snap called after looking at her hand.

Spence: [kd][qd]
Rich: [as][ks]

The board ran [3h][6d][8c][5c][8s] to send Spence to the rail. Rich moved up to 567,000. -- MC

LEVEL UP: BLINDS 4,000/8,000, ante 1,000

5:30pm: Double double
Two short stack double ups to tell you about now...

First Paul Corrigan doubled through Michael McGee, with queens against jacks. His all-in was for 102,000 so although McGee lost a few big blinds he's still the chip leader.

On the adjacent table a fun hand played out between Zavala Guzman and Einar Einarsson. The latter opened to 13,000 in late position and called when Guzman three-bet small, to just 21,000 from the big blind.

On the [4h][Qs][2h] flop the remaining chips went in and it was easy to see why. Guzman had [Ac][Ad] whilst Einarsson had [5h][3h] for a huge draw. The [Ks] turn and [4c] river kept Guzman - who was all-in for 62,000 - in front and he survived. --NW

5:20pm: Double down for Nitsche, then out
Dominik Nitsche came back from a five big blind stack to make the money with a healthy stack. He's seen it drop back to 48,000 though after he doubled neighbour, Xiao Yang Luo.

Luo moved all in for 65,000 from the hijack and Nitsche called from the next seat.

Luo: [4h][4d]
Nitsche: [as][jh]

The board ran a blank [6c][2h][8h][2d][qs].

News reached media row that Nitsche never recovered.--MC

5:05pm: Irving hits the river
Action folded to Oliver Hoong on the button and, given both blinds had less than 10 big blinds, he open shoved for an effective 50,000. The small blind folded but Neil Irving took a look at his cards before making the call. He was all-in for 28,000 total.

Irving: [Jd][8d]
Hoong: [Kd][4d]

After the [Js][Ks][9c] flop Irving got up and prepared to leave. But it was wasted energy as the [7h] turn and [Td] river meant he rivered a straight to stay in the tournament. --NW

5pm: Benjamin 'busting' Burnhill at it again
Benjamin Burnhill burst the bubble and he's still out in the field eliminating players, the latest being John McDevitt.

He opened to 15,000 from second position and called after McDevitt moved all in for 41,000 from the small blind.

Burnhill: [2d][2c]
McDevitt: [ac][kd]

The board ran [5c][td][4d][jh][7h] to see the two hold. -- MC

4:50pm: Complete chip counts

LEVEL UP: BLINDS 3,000/6,000, ante 1,000

4:31pm: Break time
The players are now on a 15-minute break. --NW

4:30pm: Teng gets there against Ooi
As the final seconds of the level ticked down Andrew Teng was faced with a decision. Chris Fox had opened to 13,500 from late position, Teng then three-bet to 33,000 only for Yew Kah Ooi to move all-in for 78,000 total.

Fox tanked and passed what he later said was pocket eights and Teng got confirmation of the size of the all-in bet and called after some thought.

Teng: [Kh][Qh]
Ooi: [As][Qs]

The [6s][4h][2c][Kd][7s] board favoured Teng and Dominik Nitsche - who had wandered over to check on his friend - said: "Just let me know when you need me to help out!" as he needled his friend about the suck out. -- NW

4:25pm: Post bubble doubles
There's always lots of bust outs after the bubble bursts but there's also a few double ups that occur. Two players who did just that were Oliver Hoong and Zavala Guzman
.

Hoong was down to 26,000 when he moved all in from the hijack with [kd][qd]. Kevin Whelan was in the small blind and made the call with a dominating [as][qc] and the board ran [2c][8h][3d][6d][5d]. The former made a flush and Whelan dropped to 68,000.

Seconds later, Guzman three-bet all in for 67,500 after Marc Bedwell had opened. Call.

Guzman: [ac][ad]
Bedwell: [8h][8s]

The board ran [jd][kd][jc][qh][6s] to see the aces hold. Bedwell dropped to 34,500. -- MC

4:10pm: Both Day 1 chip leaders and defending champion still in
Believe it or not, it's not often that both end of Day 1 chip leaders make the money on the UKIPT but it has happened today although they now find themselves in very different positions chip wise. For Kevin Whelan it's been a struggle and he's now down to 70,000.

However for David Gomez it's been a great day so far and he just eliminated Denis Rosanov Marinov to take his stack over 500,000. The latter shoved for 56,500 from early position with [Ad][5s] and Gomez looked him up with [As][Td]. The superior ace held as the board came [4c][7c][Tc][Th][9s].

Dean Hutchison - who's the defending champion - is also still in and he's got roughly 370,000. --NW

4pm: Ross Findlay bubbles UKIPT Edinburgh

Someone had to be the first loser; it's the way of the poker world. Ross Findlay was that player today, leaving in 56th place without a bean to show for it.

He was down to 8,000 when he called all in from the small blind after Benjamin Burnhill had raised from early position.

Findlay: [ah][7h]
Burnhill: [ac][tc]

The board ran [jd][js][4d][6h][5d]. Findaly had some chopportunities but they failed to come and he left to a round of applause. Everyone left in is now guaranteed £1,255. -- MC

3:50pm: Fox at the centre of the action
Chris Fox has been involved in all the major bubble action and he just put Yew Kah Ooi to the test...

The action was started by Ben Jenkins, he raised to 11,000 from under-the-gun, Fox three-bet to 27,000 from the hi-jack and Ooi then smooth called from the big blind. At this point Jenkins wanted a closer look at Ooi's stack - Ooi had about 95,000 behind - and after weighing it up Jenkins elected to fold.

On the [Qc][Qh][6d] flop Ooi bet 25,000 and Fox instantly announced that he was all-in. This sent Ooi into the tank and he spent so long there that the clock was called. As the time ticked down he seemed no closer to a decision and eventually he was out of time and his hand was declared dead. Fox showed pocket nines as he took the pot.

The bubble continues here in Edinburgh. --NW

3:40pm: Gomez shows his class, closes in on half a million
David Gomez may have had some luck in reaching the summit but a hand just before the level up showed the man's class.

He raised to 8,500 and was only called by Chris Fox in the small blind. The flop fanned [3c][9h][4d] and Fox led for a chunky 18,000. Gomez called to the [4c] where he bet 38,000 when Fox checked to him. Fox called and then led for 58,000 on the [5d] river but was soon shoved on. The Brit had 230,000 chips back and decided to preserve them with a fold. Gomez then rubbed salt into the wound by opening [ah][6c] for ace high!

Fox stared at the hand and then asked, "Was there a six on that flop?" A couple of players shook their heads. "How do you find an all in there?" asked a bemused sounding Fox. "Too good!" he followed up. -- MC

LEVEL UP: BLINDS 2,500/5,000, ante 500

3:15pm: Bubble time
We're on the bubble! Just 56 players remain now and tournament staff are just breaking a table - all tables are eight handed on the bubble - and then play will resume. --NW

3:14pm: So close
Hard luck to Barry Hamill, Barry Tatton, Haukur Bodvarsson, Jonathan Bowers and Leo Sigurdsson who were the final five players to exit before the bubble. --NW

3:10pm: Bodvarsson busts
Fifty-nine players remain after Haukur Bodvarsson busted in 60th place.

Bodvarsson was one of 10 Icelandic players who travelled over just to play this event. He came back today in 20th place but admitted to the blog that he didn't play well today. He said he got his last 22,000 in with ace-ten and the big blind called with king-eight and went on to make trip kings. -- MC

3pm: Out close to the bubble
We're getting very close to the bubble now as: Ben Morrison, Dominic Crolla, Hak-Hyun Lee, Ronald James, Yiannis Liperis, David Gallagher, Roddy MacNeil, David Gray, Anthony Singh, Patrick Letham and Phillip Brautigam are all out. --NW

2:54pm: Bad river busts Ferguson
Andrew Ferguson must've had his fair share of bad rivers today. The last one cost him his tournament life.

He was down to just 17,000 when he moved all in from the big blind after Dode Elliot raised to 10,000 from the button. Call.

Ferguson: [ac][6s]
Elliot: [kh][6d]

The board ran [8h][3c][4h][ts][kd].

"Jesus! F%&*ing rivers," said an understandably disgruntled Ferguson. Elliot's up 162,000. -- MC

2:50pm: Full chip counts
We've just updated the chip count page with counts of everyone who's left in and will continue to update this page throughout the day. The current top ten are as below:

2:40pm: Rich doubles through Lodge
The action folded to Angelina Rich in the cut-off and she raised to 8,000, Harry Lodge then re-raised to 22,000 on the button and it folded back to Rich. The Australian took some time to calculate her next move and it was to move all-in for 105,500. Lodge, who final tabled UKIPT Isle of Man in Season 4, took one look back at his cards and called.

Lodge: [Qs][Qc]
Rich: [Kc][Kd]

The [4d][5s][2d][9d][5c] board kept the kings in front and dropped Lodge back down to around 195,000. --NW

2:37pm: Bubble looming
There are just 62 players remaining, meaning they are seven spots off the money. Tension is building! -- MC

2:27pm: Hussain busts in battle of the blinds
Mudasser Hussain came wandering over to where Jake Cody and Michael Kane were stood, on a break from the High Roller event, to tell them of his demise.

He had pockets eights in the small blind and raised of a 24 big blind stack. Michael McGee was in the big blind and set him all in with ace-king. Hussain called and a flopped ace was enough to eliminate him. -- MC

LEVEL UP: BLINDS 2,000/4,000, ante 500

2:02pm: First break of the day
That's two levels down, time for a break and a nice cup of tea.

1:50pm: Brautigam hits to survive
Overcards against pocket pairs are often described as a 'classic race' and Phillip Brautigam and
Colin Wu just engaged in one with the overcards winning out this time round. It was Wu who started the action, opening with [6h][6s] and then calling after Brautigam jammed for 44,700 with [Ad][Kd].

The [3s][9s][Kc][Ac][Td] board hit Brautigam not once but twice and he doubled to over 90,000. --NW

1:45pm: Big stacks

1:35pm: Cody runs bad to bust, then runs well to find the money for high roller
Team PokerStars Pro Jake Cody had been eliminated from the Main Event but is going to enter the High Roller event after finding a casino-themed way of getting the buy in together.

His Main Event came to and end when he three-bet all in for 60,000 from the button with ace-queen suited, only for the big blind to wake up with pocket kings behind him.

Cody wanted to buy in for the High Roller but was £100 short of the £2,200 buy in and has lost his bank card. He decided to go over to the roulette table and put £1,000 on black and being Jake Cody, of course it came in! He now has the money to buy in and also has some, "walking around money." -- MC

1:20pm: The rich get richer
Angelina Rich had a healthy stack of 162,500 at the start of the day and she's built that up to 270,000 during the opening level.

It was also a good opening 60 minutes for Dean Hutchison, the defending champion is up to 180,000. --NW

1:08pm: "Luckbox" MacNeil triples up
"Make sure you write he's a luckbox!" jested Thomas Pearn after Roddy MacNeil got lucky to triple up.

Jonathon Prested opened to 5,000 before MacNeil moved all in for 25,400 from the next seat and Milan Sasek moved in behind. Prested called to set up a three-way showdown.

Prested: [ah][5h]
Pearn: [8c][8d]
Sasek: [jc][js]

The board ran [8s][qh][qs][6s][2s] to make Pearn a full house for an unlikely triple up. Sasek had 9,800 left and Prested had to match that for the side pot and he dropped to 51,000. Sasek busted soon after though. -- MC

LEVEL UP: BLINDS 1,500/3,000 ante 400

12:55pm: Big ace versus bigger ace
Two of the short stacks at table six just tangled in a pot and there could only be one winner. From early position Gary Smillie shoved for around 37,000 with [Ad][Td] and Barry Tatton re-raised all-in for roughly 46,000 with [Ah][Qc].

The [Kh][6s][4s][2c][7s] board kept Tatton in front and eliminated Smillie. -- NW

12:50pm: O'Kearney off to good start; Silver going for High Roller hat-trick
Some news from the twittersphere to bring you now. Dara O'Kearney is the UKIPT Online Player of the Year - he wins more satellites to these events than anyone else - and he can also cut it when playing live too.

Lost a pot, won a bigger pot. 125k now #UKIPTEdinburgh

— Dara O'Kearney (@daraokearney) November 21, 2015

And the UKIPT High Roller has just started it's a £2,000 + £200 single re-entry event and Max Silver and EPT12 Malta champion Niall Farrell are among those who're playing.

Playing UKIPT Edinburgh HR. @Firaldo87poker on my table doing his best to give back to poker economy

— Max Silver (@max_silver) November 21, 2015

12:42pm: Naughton loses El Classico
Real Madrid and Barcelona contest a league match today in a fixture that has come to known as El Classico. The poker equivalent of that is the El Classico of races, ace-king versus queens.

Roger Naughton and Paul Otto contested such a race just now and the latter snatched a win. All the balls went in preflop.

Naughton: [as][ks]
Otto: [qc][qd]

The board ran [3c][2d][7h][8s][qh] to make Otto a set and relegate Naughton. -- MC

12:30pm: Good start for Whelan
Being chip leader after Day 1 is often said to be a curse but overnight chip leader Kevin Whelan is off to a good start on Day 2 and has already eclipsed the 300,000 chip mark. He's built his start of day stack of 272,000 up to 315,000 during the opening 30 minutes of play. --NW

12:20pm: Andrew Beuken and more depart
As always on Day 2, the start is filled with dealer calls of, "Seat open, table..."

Andrew Beuken heard that cry from table 11 after he was eliminated by Anthony Singh, the player who caused his opponents all sorts of troubles on Day 1A.

Mudasser Hussain opened to 5,000 before Beuken three-bet all in for 34,000. Sing was in the big blind and snap called after looking down at his hand. The speed of the call was enough for Hussain to fold sevens.

Beuken: [ad][kc]
Hussain: [as][6s]

The board ran [9s][jh][6h][6d][8s] to make Hussain trips.

Other to feel that pain today are: Noel Donaldson, Michelle Bennett, Philipp Oehmke, Edgaras Barisauskas, Paul McHenry and Toby Hariefeld. -- MC

12:05pm: Chantler finds decent spot; busts
Gareth Chantler was the first player to exit today but as he explained, his exit hand played itself and he said: "It was a decent spot."

It was Dean Hutchison - the defending champion - who did for him, the Scotsman opened with pocket sevens, Chantler shoved for 27,700 with [A][Q] and was drawing dead after a [8][7][2] flop. -- NW

12:02pm: Shuffle up and deal
Cards are in the air the air for Day 2.

11:50am: The march to the money begins
Despite a light dusting of snow falling last night in Edinburgh there was a request earlier this morning from a player asking if he could wear shorts in the card room. You see, whilst it might be cold outside, inside it's going to be clement. Day 2 is always moving day on the UKIPT as stacks grow and people sweat the bubble.

101 players still retain an interest in this tournament and 55 of them with cash for a minimum of £1,255. Stacks currently range from 110+ big blinds to less than two, and whilst Kevin Whelan's chip leading stack of 272,000 is mightily impressive at the end of today's 10 allotted levels that will equate to just over 11 big blinds. There are plenty of notables still in the field, including Team PokerStars Jake Cody who's got a stack of 62,600.

In short today we expect lots of action, plenty of big pots and some heartbreak along the way. You can see the start of day seat draw here and the overnight chip counts here. Play is due to start at noon.

Fancy playing a UKIPT? There are always plenty of online satellites, click here to get an account.

PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT5 Edinburgh: Marc Convey and Nick Wright. Photos by Mickey May

7:50pm: Play resumes with a happy Elliot
The players are back in their seats for the last four levels of the day. One man who must've enjoyed his dinner more than most was Dode Elliot, who scored a huge double up to around 600,000.

He opened to 18,000 (bb 8,000) from middle position before Dean Hutchison three-bet to 42,000 from the small blind. Colin Wu was in the big blind and called before Elliot four-bet to 150,000. Hutchison folded but Wu set Elliot all in for his 281,000 and was snapped off.

Wu: [9c][9s]
Elliot: [ad][ac]

The board ran [6d][kd][2s][6c][4d] and Elliot breathed a sigh of relief. -- MC

Fancy playing a UKIPT? There are always plenty of online satellites, click here to get an account.

PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT5 Edinburgh: Marc Convey and Nick Wright. Photos by Mickey May

That's Day 2 of UKIPT Edinburgh in the books. It was a long one with ten one-hour levels and by the time the journey ended, 11 remained, ever so close to the final table. As the day rolled on a couple of great stories emerged and a bubble was burst, but first to the chip leader.

On Day 1B David Gomez used a fortunate start to help propel him to the end of day summit. Today the blog witnessed the other side of poker in his game. He snatched the lead off Alex Lynskey when the two battled in a pot in the dying moments but it was a pot he played on the bubble that stood out amongst all others today.

He raised to 8,500 and was only called by Chris Fox in the small blind. The flop fell [3c][9s][4d] and Fox led out for 18,000. Gomez called to the [4c] turn where he bet 38,000 when Fox checked to him. Fox called and then led for 58,000 on the [5d] river but was soon shoved for his remaining 230,000. When Fox folded Gomez couldn't help himself and opened [ah][6c] for ace high. That's poker right there, folks. He'll take 1,540,000 through to tomorrow and leads the following players:

The last time the UKIPT was in town was in January 2014, for Season 4's Scottish leg, it was won by Dean Hutchison to keep the title on home soil. In the tour's history no player has come back and defended his title, although there's have been some near misses, but Hutchison has that chance tomorrow. He's below average but we all know that anything can happen in this game.

Alex Lynskey made a good fist at topping the end of day counts once the tournament was drawn onto it's last two tables. Up until that point, he and girlfriend Angelica Rich - who are up from Australia and have been travelling around Europe for the past two months - had been kept apart. Rich was the first player to pass a million chips but her stack dipped once Lynskey was on her right, let's hope he's doesn't have to sleep on the floor tonight!

The bubble bust in the third level of the day and, despite some interesting hands that almost ended in showdown, the first all in and call got the job done and made 55 players in the room happy. Benjamin Burnhill opened from early position with ace-ten and Ross Findlay called all in with ace-seven. The flop ran blank and Findlay shook his opponent's hand, welcomed the round of applause he received and made his exit.

The next few hours of play saw a steady stream of players busting, winning more and more money as time passed. Overnight chip leader Kevin Whelan found life at the baize more tricky today but he secured a cash, busting in 43rd; Dominik Nitsche recovered from a micro stack to cash before going in 39th; Jamie Ellwood, Jonathon Prested and Ben Jenkins all enjoy each other's company so decided to bust 36th, 34th and 33rd; Kyle Maguire was sent on his way by buddy Hutchison and Andrew Teng got lucky to double once but not a second time, and went in 20th.

The final day starts at midday once more tomorrow and play will continue until a winner is crowned. Here's how much the players who make the official final table can win:

To catch up on all today's exciting action, click on the links below:

Level 13-18 updates.
Level 19-22 updates.

All photos are copyright of Mickey May. Her new camera has features you don't want to know about, so you better credit her if you use her pictures.

You'll find level 27 updates (and beyond) in a new post here.

You want chip counts? We've got chip counts and you'll find them here.

4:45pm: Gomez enters break happy after doubling up
David Gomez has gone off on break with the other players a happy man after doubling to 2,075,000 through Alex Lynskey, who dropped to 1,490,000.

He raised to 100,000 from the button and then four-bet all in after Lynskey three-bet to 260,000 from the small blind. Lynskey asked for a count and called after hearing it was for one million exactly.

Lynskey: [kc][qs]
Gomez: [as][js]

The board ran [jd][ah][qd][jh][ad] to make Gomez a winning full house. -- MC

4:25pm: Dode Elliot eliminated in sixth place (£11,210)
And then there were five...
Alex Lysnkey has been opening a lot of pots since he took over the chip lead and he raised to 100,000 from under-the-gun. Action passed to Ben Burnhill, he three-bet to 250,000 and Dode Elliot then moved all-in for 610,000. There then followed a quick fold from Lynskey and an even quicker call from Burnhill.

Elliot: [Ah][Qc]
Burnhill: [As][Ad]

Elliot was in trouble and there was no saving him on the [5h][7s][3h][5c][6d] board. He's out in sixth and his brother Willie - who finished fourth at UKIPT4 Nottingham - retains the bragging rights for best UKIPT performance for now. --NW

4:13pm: Michael McGee eliminated in seventh place (£8,340)
Enter a pot with Angelina Rich at your peril. She just eliminated Michael McGee shortly after she took out Gary Laing.

The action folded around to her in the small blind and she set McGee all in for his 270,000-stack. He called it off and the cards were on their backs.

Rich: [kc][7h]
McGee: [5d][jh]

The board ran [6c][2d][8s][8c][4d] to miss both players. Rich's stack tops 1.7 million now. -- MC

3:55pm: Gary Laing eliminated in eighth place (£6,038)
Angelina Rich has got her final table back on track by taking out Gary Laing, moving her up to 1,400,000.

She opened from under the gun and Laing called from the small blind. A [7c][qc][jc] flop fanned in front of them and Laing check-called 140,000. The turn was the [kh] and Laing checked to face a bet for his remaining 350,000. He tank-called it off.

Laing: [kd][th] for top pair and opened ended straight draw.
Rich: [qd][qs] for a set.

The river was the [jh] and Laing was the first player out from the final table. -- MC

Blinds up: 25,000/50,000, ante 5,000

3:45pm: Gomez gets some back; Rich drops to half a million
David Gomez is on the comeback trail as he just won a decent sized pot against Angelina Rich who, as a result, has dropped to around 500,000.

She was the aggressor in the hand raising to 80,000 from the cut-off, a bet that Gomez called from the big blind. Rich fired twice on the [8d][6s][8h][Ac] board before giving up on the [2s] river. Gomez showed [Ah][Td] to take the pot.

A couple of hands later Rich shoved all-in from under-the-gun but got no takers. --NW

3:35pm: Chip counts

3:30pm: Lynskey doubles into the chip lead
Alex Lynskey coolered Michael McGee to double up to more than two million, good for the chip lead.

The two were heads up to the turn where the board read [7c][4c][ts][td]. Lynskey led for 170,000 from the small blind and McGee called from under the gun to see the [qs] complete the board. Lynksey moved all in for 565,000 and McGee looked really uncomfortable and started muttering to himself. He said there was no way he could fold and called with [ac][tc]. Lynskey opened [4c][4d] for a full house and allowed himself a smile. -- MC

3:15pm: Hutchison gets lucky to double
The wheels are starting to come off for former chip leader David Gomez. He just got unlucky to double up Dean Hutchison.

The action folded around to the defending champion on the button and he moved all in for 510,000. Gomez was in the big blind and snap called.

Gomez: [ah][qh]
Hutchison: [ac][js]

Hutchison's friends on the rail started calling for a jack and it never came on the [td][6h][7s] flop but once the turn came [jc] their chants changed to, "HOLD!" They, and Hutchison, got their wish as the river came as [5s]. Gomez dropped to 1,150,00. -- MC

3:05pm: Play resumes
The official final table is underway!

2:52pm: Alan Brown eliminated in ninth place (£4,890)

Alan Brown will not be taking part in the official final table shenanigans after he busted to Ben Burnhill in ninth place.

Burnhill opened to 85,000 from under the gun and called after Brown moved all in for 375,000 from the small blind. Many of the players stood to see how the hand would play out.

Brown: [ah][kc]
Burnhill: [6c][6s]

The board ran [td][th][3d][2s][qs] to see the sixes hold.

They'll be a short break in the action now while the final player interviews and photos take place. -- MC

2:45pm: Dode Elliot doubles through Alex Lynskey
"Home advantage is the key," said Willie Elliot to me after his brother doubled up to stay in the tournament.

Dode Elliot shoved for 435,000 from the hijack with [Ac][9c] and after getting a count Alex Lynskey announced called and opened [Ad][Jc] when it was time for showdown. The [2d][4h][9h][6d][2c] board favoured the home town hero and he doubled up. --NW

2:43pm: Gomez loses the chip lead
For the first time today David Gomez has lost the chip lead. He lost a small pot to Alex Lynskey to drop to 1,650,000, with 1,700,000 Michael McGee just has the edge. -- NW

2:38pm: Lynskey unlocking a comeback
Alex Lynskey's aggressive approach has seen his stack grow back up to 1,320,000. He's won a couple of small pots and a bigger one off chip leader, David Gomez, who's dropped to 1,900,000.

Lynskey opened to 80,000 from mid position and bet flop and turn. Gomez stuck with him all the way and both ended up checking the river when a [kc][ks][9s][4s][7c] board rested. Lynskey opened [qh][qs] and Gomez mucked whilst shaking his head, the first chink seen in his armour today. -- MC

2:25pm: Counts of the final nine
The final nine are back in their seats and David Gomez is still the man to catch. He's had the chip lead all day and is still clear of the chasing pack. At the other end of the counts Dean Hutchison, Alan Brown and Donald Elliot are all in the danger zone with stacks ranging from 10 to 12.5 big blinds.

Blinds up: 20,000/40,000, ante 5,000

2:10pm: Break
The players are now on a 15 minute break. --NW

2:08pm: More for McGee
Michael McGee is firmly on the comeback trail after winning a very healthy three-way pot without showdown.

David Gomez opened to 60,000 from mid position and was called by Dode Elliot in the hijack and McGee in the big blind. The flop fell [kc][7c][3s] and Gomez's 80,000 c-bet was called by both players. The turn came as the [3h] and Gomez bet another 185,000. Elliot called but McGee check-raised all in for 511,000. Both player admitted defeated and folded.

The players are soon to go on break and full counts will be posted. -- MC

1:50pm: McGee finds a double up
Michael McGee needed a double up bad, and he found one through chips leader, David Gomez.

The action folded to him in the cutoff and he moved all in for 310,000. Gomez was in the big blind and made the call.

McGee: [qh][qs]
Gomez: [ac][8c]

The board ran a blank [kd][7h][td][4c][6h]. Gomez still huge on 2,500,000. -- MC

1:35pm: Gomez continues to apply the pressure
It's been all David Gomez since the players combined to one table with the Spaniard using relentless aggression to increase his stack.

In a hand against Alex Lynskey, the Spaniard opened to 70,000 from early position, Lynskey three-bet to 165,000, Gomez made it 270,000 total and Lynskey flat called. On the [Jh][4c][2c] flop Gomez fired out a bet of 175,000 and showed [As][8d] when Lynskey folded. The Australian's reaction - he was happy - showed that Gomez likely had the best hand anyway.

In the second big pot he played he pot Dean Hutchison to the test for his tournament life. The action started with Hutchison raising to 60,000 from the hijack, Gomez three-bet pretty small - making it just 100,000 - from the button and Hutchison tank-called. Both players checked the [6c][8d][Qd] flop, and Hutchison then check-called a bet of 100,000 on the [2h] turn.

The [5c] completed the board and after Hutchison checked, Gomez slid out a tower of green 25K chips that totalled enough to set Hutchison all-in. The defending champion had about 400,000 back and after a long think he elected to fold. --NW

1:25pm: Play resumes
The players are in their final seat of the tournament and play gets back underway. -- MC

1:20pm: Unofficial final table seat draw

1:10pm: Dara O'Kearney eliminated in 10th place (£4,050)

Yesterday Dara O'Kearney sent a tweet out where he said today could be the day where he finally makes a UKIPT final table. Unfortunately for him, it didn't turn out to be the case.

He was down to 250,000 when he moved all in for from under the gun. His good friend Dode Elliot was in the big blind and made the call.

Elliot: [8h][8d]
O'Kearney: [ah][5h]

The board ran [2d][6c][qh][3h][9c]. The two shook hands and O'Kearney made a quiet exit. The final nine will now be drawn onto one unofficial final table-- MC

1:03pm: Updated chip counts
David Gomez has a big lead right now, whilst Dara O'Kearney now has less than 10 big blinds and is the shortest stack of the final 10.

Blinds up: 15,000/30,000, ante 4,000

12:59pm: Thomas Pearn eliminated in 11th place (£4,050)
Thomas Pearn was the second shortest stack at the start of the day and he was trying to find a spot to double up for much of the opening level. At the very end of the first level he found one, but it didn't end well.

In his exit hand the action folded to Angelina Rich in the small blind and she moved all-in, Pearn had about 440,000 in total and he thought for some time before announcing call.

Rich didn't look too happy about this, she showed [As][4h] whilst Pearn had [Ad][6s]. There was a 36% chance this hand would end in a chop, but the [7d][4s][Tc][Kd][2c] board favoured Rich and eliminated Pearn. She's up to 1,150,000 as a result. --NW

12:57pm: They clash again
David Gomez's stack had dipped a little with his play almost every pot style, but he just took anther chunk out of Alex Lynskey to get back up to 2,230,000 with the latter dropped further to 600,000.

Gomez raised to 57,000 off the button and Lynskey defended his big blind to see a [9d][2d][9c] flop appear. Lynskey check-called 57,000 there and 130,000 on the [8c] turn before both checked the [qs] river. Lynskey opened [ad][jh] but lost out to the Spaniard's [4d][4c]. -- MC

12:45pm: Gomez playing every pot
David Gomez isn't exactly sitting on his chip lead, in fact he's played every pot since the big hand against Alex Lynskey. The rest of the table aren't letting him run over them though, but he's clearly able to exert a lot of pressure on his opponents at this stage.

In the first hand of this sequence Dean Hutchison opened to 50,000 from the button, Gomez wanted a look at the defending champion's stack so Hutchison moved his hands so the Spaniard could get a better look. A few seconds later Gomez made it 120,000 to go but folded when Hutchison moved all-in for ~550,000.

Gomez soon got those chips back though as on the next hand Thomas Pearn raised to 52,000 and then folded after Gomez three-bet to 120,000. "You're allowed to fold you know," said Michael McGee cheekily to Gomez as he took the pot. McGee is on Gomez's direct left and isn't exactly getting the chance to open many pots.

That's because Gomez is, and on the next hand the Spaniard opened to 57,000 from the hijack and called when Angelina Rich three-bet to 160,000 from the big blind. On the [4c][9h][Ad] flop Rich c-bet 135,000 and Gomez released his cards. -- NW

12:35pm: Gomez clear leader after chip leaders clash
A big clash between chip leaders, David Gomez and Alex Lynksey, was always going to happen and it took place maybe a little earlier than expected. When the dust settled, Gomez became clear chip leader with 2,350,000 and his Australian opponent dropped back into the pack with 725,000.

Gomez opened to 57,000 from under the gun and Lynksey was the only caller in the cutoff. The board ran out [2s][8d][th][ac][4s] and Gomez emptied the clip with bets of 75,000, 190,000 and 500,000 on each street. Lynksey called the first two bets in standard time but had the clock called on him when he faced the river bomb. He didn't wait until the clock ran down to call and he was disappointed to see Gomez's [ad][2h] for two pair. Muck.-- MC

12:17pm: Doke dents Dode
Dara O'Kearney was the shortest stack at the start of play but he's just moved up the chip charts after winning a sizeable pot against Dode Elliot.

Pre-flop Elliot raised to 49,000 and O'Kearney smooth called from the big blind. The flop fell [4c][9c][9h], Elliot c-bet to the the tune of 55,000, O'Kearney check-raised to 125,000 and after a decent amount of tank time Elliot smooth called.

The [8h] hit the turn and O'Kearney wasted little time in requesting the all-in triangle. Elliot didn't ask for a count, but O'Kearney's bet looked to be in the region of 240,000. The Scotsman went deep into the tank again but ultimately elected to fold. After that hand O'Kearney is up to roughly 600,000 whilst Elliot drops to 515,000. --NW

12:11pm: First showdown pot goes to.....Laing
Gary Laing made a good start by winning a small pot out of position against Alan Brown.

The latter raised to 48,000 from the button and Laing called from the small bind to see a [7h][as][ah] flop roll out in from of them. The action was checked to the [tc] turn where Laing led for 51,000. Call. The river was the [7h] and Laing bet another 55,000. He opened [ks][ts] once called and Brown folded whilst saying, "Nice hand."

Laing moved up to almost 900,000 as a result and Brown dipped to 850,000. -- MC

12pm: Let's get this started
Cards are in the air here in Edinburgh. --NW

11:45am: Welcome back to the final day UKIPT5 Edinburgh
Well done everyone, we've all made it to the final day of the final UKIPT festival of 2015. Season 5 rolls into 2016 but today marks the last day this year we'll all be together, and it promises to a great day!

Day 2 ended with 11 players remaining and they are led by David Gomez, who was also Day 1B chip leader. He's shown through his play that he'll be a hard man to beat but there's a lot of talent to be found amongst the other 10 players. Here's the full line up:

One of the players that Gomez has to get through knows how to close out a tournament, and knows how to do it in this city. Reigning UKIPT Edinburgh champion Dean Hutchison may be one of the shorter stacks but he has the confidence and the knowledge to get the job done. Talking of short stacks brings us right on to Dara O'Kearney. The Irish serial PokerStars qualifier entered a WSOP final table in last place this year and was the short stack all the way until he busted heads up, so don't doubt his ability to play with few chips.

The players are filtering in and staff are making the final arrangement in the set up. Play will hopefully be underway n time at noon. --MC

Fancy playing a UKIPT? There are always plenty of online satellites, click here to get an account.

PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT5 Edinburgh: Marc Convey and Nick Wright. Photos by Mickey May

Seat 1: Ben Burnhill, United Kingdom (PokerStars Qualifier)

Ben Burnhill is a 29 year old local player who fits poker around his job as a business analyst for an investment bank here in Edinburgh. He's played since university (12 years ago), starting off in the Edinburgh Poker Society, then graduating to APAT and then larger events. This is his second UKIPT Main Event, although his memory of the first one is hazy as there was probably some "horrible bad beat story" to tell, even though he remembered the tour for its fantastic structure. Burnhill's final table appearance represents his biggest live result to date, and he says he'll be running on adrenaline as he's, "More mentally knackered than I've ever been."

Seat 2: David Gomez, Spain (PokerStars Qualifier)

David 'huelesabusto' Gomez is one of a number of professional poker players who call England home. The 25-year-old lives in Manchester and says he plays a "bit of everything," focusing mostly on cash games but also Spin and Gos and tournaments especially on Sundays. In October he finished runner-up in the Sunday Million winning $131,422. All told, that was a great month poker-wise for the Spaniard, who's originally from Leon in the north of Spain, as he also finished fourth in the IPT Main Event at EPT12 Malta, which earned him a further €54,570. Before poker he studied telecommunications but needs to do a final project to end his degree; outside of poker he enjoys athletics and running, and when he was younger he competed in the discus at the Spanish championships.

Seat 3: Dode Elliott, United Kingdom

Poker runs in Dode Elliott's family - his brother Willie made the final table at UKIPT Nottingham this year, finishing 4th for £67,000. Now it's Willie's turn on the rail, watching his brother, who qualified for this event in a live satellite, take his shot at a UKIPT title after having come back from one big blind in his qualifier. Elliot, 44, from Galashiels, Scotland, has fond memories of the UKIPT Edinburgh, as he picked up his biggest cash here (£13,000 for winning the £330 Edinburgh Cup in Season 3). Elliott caught the poker bug from C4's Late Night Poker, and is now a professional player.

Seat 4: Gary Laing, United Kingdom

Gary Laing is a 46-year-old site shift manager who lives in Fife and is currently enjoying a rich vein of poker form. At the end of October he won a £200 tournament in Dundee for £7,100 and is completely freerolling this event after winning not one, but two seats in satellites. The first was won in his regular pub poker league and the second on Tuesday night when he came to the casino to buy into this event. He hopped into a £55 satellite and won another seat! Laing's been playing poker for around seven years and became interested after he saw it on TV. He says he plays more live poker than online and wherever he finishes today he'll be back playing his pub poker game as usual. However, should he win today then he says he, the wife and their extended family, who number seven children, will spend some of the money on a holiday.

Seat 5: Alex Lynskey, Australia (PokerStars Qualifier)

Alex Lynskey, 25, hails from Australia where he's racked up numerous live tournament cashes, including a 10th place finish in the $10,000 Aussie Millions Main Event back in January. His biggest prior result, however, came in July when he came 6th in a WPT Main Event for $135,504, and he's spent the last two years travelling the world playing poker. Lynskey started off playing online, moving into live tournaments and has been a professional for three years. A fan of the 60-minute Day 2 clock on the UKIPT, Lynskey said of being seated next to his partner Angelina Rich, "It's absolutely ridiculous!" In a good way, surely - they're both guaranteed at least £6,038 for this stop on their ongoing world tour having qualified online on PokerStars.

Seat 6: Angelina Rich, USA, PokerStars Qualifier

Angelina Rich, 25, is a professional poker player originally from Seattle, but currently on perma-tour of the world's live poker events with her partner Alex Lynskey. Rich began playing poker while travelling in Australia, meeting some players who taught her the game - so well she soon went pro. Rich's live results span seven countries over the last two years from Macau to Berlin, with her most recent cash recorded at EPT Malta in October. Her biggest live result to date came after a Venetian Deepstack Extravaganza win this June for $215,000. She has position on Lynskey and a stack which could be problematic for him, although both of them qualified online on PokerStars and are looking at a healthy return on investment.

Seat 7: Michael McGee, United Kingdom

Professional online poker player Michael McGee hails from Edinburgh where he specialises in 6-max cash games. He began playing poker with friends in high school before taking the play-money introduction to online poker and discovering the power of the learning buddy - in his case fellow Scotsman and UKIPT4 London champion Robbie Bull, with whom he flat-shared until quite recently. He also busted Bull in this very event earlier on! McGee found the game fascinating from the start and has turned an initial learning experience into a job which is mainly screen-based but has prepared him well for a shot at his first live title.

Seat 8: Dean Hutchison, United Kingdom (PokerStars Player)

Professional poker player Dean Hutchison, 28, is attempting a feat never before seen on the UKIPT - a title defence. Last year he picked up £93,900 for the win here in Edinburgh, and hopes for a repeat victory today. Residing in Glasgow, he makes local casino cash games his bread and butter, although is only recently back from Atlantic city. Rarely leaving the cash tables, Hutchison's live tournament record is enviable; besides his win here last season he cashed in three other UKIPTs since and is playing this event as part of a prize package picked up when he won last season's Champion of Champions event in London.

You want chip counts? We've got chip counts and you'll find them here.

7pm: David Gomez wins UKIPT Edinburgh after an amazing three-way all in

The UKIPT Edinburgh Main Event has come to an end in spectacular style after a three-way all in handed the title and £49,660 to Spaniard Daniel Gomez.

He opened to 180,000 from the button before Angelina Rich three-bet to 500,000. Ben Burnhill then snap shoved all for fewer than 1.4 million and the action wasn't done there. Gomez moved in behind and Rich called all in for 2.45 million!

Rich: [ad][kd]
Burnhill: [jc][js]
Gomez: [ks][kc]

There was obviously something big going on and the rail was soon filled with spectators, many saying they'd never seen anything like it before.

The board ran [7d][th][tc][8d][2c] to confirm Gomez as a worthy champion. Rich took second - by virtue of having the bigger stack - for £31,490 and Burnhill takes home £22,760 for coming third.

That's all from Edinburgh and all from the UKIPT for 2015. Stay tuned into the blog for a full wrap of today's events. -- MC

6:40pm: Even more for Gomez
A fortunate river has seen David Gomez further extend his chip lead...

He limped from the small blind, Angelina Rich raised to 260,000 and after some thought Gomez called. On the [Ks][5d][3s] flop Gomez checked, Rich bet 250,000 and Gomez called. The [6d] turn checked through as did the [4s] river. Rich showed [Ts][Tc] but Gomez had got there with [Ah][2c] for a straight.

Rich is down to 2,000,000 whilst Gomez is up to 5,800,000. --NW

6:30pm: Gomez extends his chip lead
There's no stopping David Gomez who has extended his chip lead after winning a big pot against Ben Burnhill.

It all started so innocently as well with Burnhill completing from the small blind and then calling after Gomez raised to 205,000 from the big blind.

On the [6c][Ah][9c] flop Burnhill elected to lead, he made it 325,000 to go and Gomez smooth called. The [5h] rolled off on the turn and Burnhill continued for another 600,000. Call from Gomez. There was now over 2,300,000 in the pot and Burnhill had just 1,500,000 back as the [Qc] arrived on the river.

Both players checked with Gomez showing [Qd][9s] for two pair which was ahead of Burnhill's [Qs][Ts]. He's up to 5,500,000 now, Burnhill has 1,500,000 and Rich roughly 2,300,000. --NW

LEVEL UP: BLINDS 40,000/80,000, ante 10,000

6:20pm: Burnhill can't win with top set
Angelina Rich got chips back after she cracked Ben Burnhill's top set. He dropped to 2.85 million while she's up to 2.35 million.
Burnhill opened to 120,000 off the button and Rich peeled from the big blind to see a [jc][6h][9c] flop. The action was checked to the [7h] turn where Rich led out for 165,000 and then called when raised up to 400,000. The board completed with the [8d] and both players checked.

Burnhill opened [jh][jd] for top set but Rich opened [4h][5h] for a straight. -- MC

6:05pm: Alex Lynskey eliminated in fourth place (£18,410)

When two premium hands collide deep into a tournament the hand usually plays itself and you've just got to hope you're on the right side of the cooler. Unfortunately for Alex Lynskey today was not that day for him.

Ben Burnhill opened for 125,000, David Gomez flat called and he then three-bet shoved for roughly 1,650,000 with [Ah][Qc], Burnhill reshoved with [Js][Jd] and Gomez got out of the way.

When the rail were informed of the situation Alex Ferguson shouted: "Hold Firaldo, hold," and indeed Burnhill does have a passing resemblance to Niall Farrell, the man who won EPT12 Malta last month.

The [4s][Jc][5s] flop all but ended Lynskey's hopes and he was drawing dead after the [As] turn, rendering the [7h] river meaningless. He now takes up a watching brief as he tries to rail his girlfriend to victory here in Edinburgh. --NW

5:55pm: David Gomez doubles through Angelina Rich
"What a call," said Rapinder Cheema at the end of this hand. The UKIPT5 London champion has made the final table of the pot-limit Omaha side event, which is taking place next to the Main Event final table, and so he had a front row seat for this huge pot.

It started with Angelina Rich raising to 120,000 from the button and she picked up calls from Ben Burnhill (small blind) and David Gomez (big blind).

On the [7s][Qd][9d] flop she lef for 175,000 and only Gomez called. The [2c] fell on the turn, Gomez checked, Rich bet 315,000 and Gomez called. The [Ah] completed the board and after Gomez checked, Rich moved all-in. She was the covering stack and her bet was for an effective 1,370,000.

Gomez went deep into the tank, he stared mostly at the board and played with his lower lip whilst he mulled over the decision. After around four to five minutes he announced call, Rich showed [Jc][Th] for an open ended straight draw that had missed, Gomez opened [Qc][Td] for a cracking call with second pair.

He's up to 4,080,000 after that hand and has the chip lead, whilst Rich drops to 1,650,000. "I didn't think she was bluffing," said Alex Lynskey to Gomez after the hand. "I thought she had it. I thought for sure she had the ace there." --NW

5:50pm: Dean Hutchison eliminated in fifth place (£14,570)

There was the chance of two firsts on the UKIPT today. Dean Hutchison was aiming to become the first player retain a tour stop title and Angelina Rich would become the first ever female champion should she win. The first can't happen now and the second has become very likely after Rich got lucky to take out Hutchison.

Hutchison opened to 125,000 from under the gun and was called by Ben Burnhill before Rich squeezed to 400,000. Hutchison shoved for just over a million and Rich called after Burnhill folded.

Rich: [ac][qd]
Hutchison: [qh][qc]

The board ran [td][4h][as][kd][4d] to see Rich hit her three-outer and moves up to around 3.9 million. -- MC

5:30pm: The rich get richer
Angelina Rich has taken the chip lead after winning a three-way pot...

She opened to 120,000 from the cut off and picked up calls from Ben Burnhill (small blind) and David Gomez (big blind). On the [2h][Ad][4d] flop she bet 165,000 and both opponents called, with Gomez taking longer than Burnhill to do so.

The turn was the [4s] and Rich fired again - this time 350,000 was the size of the bet - and that got rid of both Burnhill and Gomez. After that hand she's up to 2,500,000, Burnhill is down to 2,200,000 and Gomez drops to 1,700,000. --NW

5:25pm: Hutchison shoves
After a raise to 120,000 from David Gomez and a flat call from Alex Lynskey, Dean Hutchison moved all-in for 925,000 total. That soon shook off Gomez, but Lynskey wanted a count and he tanked hard before folding his hand. --NW

5:20pm: Play resumes

5:10pm: Unscheduled break
There players on a short, unscheduled break.

5pm: Chip counts of the final five
The final five players are back in their seats and this is how they stack up. Ben Burnhill leads the way with a stack of over 3,000,000. Dean Hutchison is the short stack and with a stack of just over 15 big blinds the defending champion is going to have get busy sooner rather than later.

PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT5 Edinburgh: Marc Convey and Nick Wright. Photos by Mickey May

I think we can put the myth of the 'curse of the chip leader' well and truly to bed. In this tournament David Gomez was the Day 1B chip leader, was still top at the end of Day 2 and now he's won it all and is the latest UKIPT champion. "It's amazing. In Spain, not too many people have this type of trophy so it's special," he said after he'd won.

For most of the final day's play a victory for the Spaniard had seemed the most likely outcome as he held the chip lead for all but a brief period. However, he could never have predicted the spectacular finish to this tournament. There was no heads-up play in this event as the final hand took place with three people still at the felt, with the Spaniard a commanding chip leader.

He opened the pot with pocket kings, Angelina Rich three-bet with [Ad][Kd], Ben Burnhill - who was the shortest of the three - committed his chips with [Jc][Js], Gomez shoved over the top and after a brief think Rich called all-in.

The [7d][Th][Tc] flop was as safe as they come for Gomez but the [8d] turn gave Burnhill a straight draw and Rich a flush draw. There was still one out - the [Jd] that would see the tournament continue three handed - but the [2c] fell on the river to give Gomez the victory. Rich had Burnhill covered so finished runner-up and so for the second season in a row we had a female finish second in Edinburgh. (Team PokerStars Pro Liv Boeree was runner-up in Season 4)

As alluded to above there was little that went wrong for Gomez today. Play began with 11 players left and the Spaniard, who now calls Manchester home, in the chip lead. He was basically playing every pot and by winning more than he lost he soon extended his lead. He wasn't involved in any of the hands that saw Thomas Prean (11th), Dara O'Kearney (10th) and Alan Brown (9th) eliminated though and so when the official final table of eight was set it was close at the top between Gomez, Alex Lynskey and Burnhill, who was being referred to as 'firaldo' by Dean Hutchison's rail due to his passing resemblance to EPT12 Malta winner Niall Farrell.

At the other end of the chip counts sat Hutchison, aka the defending champion. There have been some amazing title defences on the UKIPT over the years (Max Silver, 4th UKIPT2 Dublin and Brett Angell, 7th UKIPT5 London) have come the closet and back to back final tables in his home UKIPT was a fine achievement in itself by the 28-year-old Scotsman.

When play was still eight handed he got a lucky double with a dominated ace against Gomez and it looked like his title defence might go all the way. But, the Poker Gods decided to even out the variance, he got it in with queens against the [As][Qc] of Rich but an ace on the flop sent him out in fifth. The UKIPT double winners club total still stands at four for now.

The elimination of the defending champion was the fourth exit in a hectic opening two hours of the final table. First out of the elite eight was Gary Laing. He turned top pair to go with an open ended straight draw and called off against Rich, who had flopped a set. He missed the river and was out in eighth earning £6,038. It was the latest in a string of impressive results for the Fife man who won his seat to this event in a Pub Poker league.

Next to go was Michael McGee who was left with less than five big blinds after being coolered by Lynskey. Again it was Rich who played the role of executioner, setting him in with [Kc][7h] from the small blind and holding against McGee's [Jh][5d] which didn't improve. It was an assured performance from McGee though and you wouldn't bet against the Scot - who until recently lived with UKIPT3 London winner Robbie Bull - from making another UKIPT final table down the line.

From flatmate bragging rights to the brotherly kind. Dode Elliot's brother - Willie - made the final table at UKIPT4 Nottingham where he finished fourth. Unfortunately for Dode it's Willie who retains the bragging rights as Elliot ran [Ah][Qc] into Burnhill's pocket aces to bust in sixth place. Willie though was in reflective mood as his brother had earlier hit a three outer to survive and there were no complaints from either party.

After Hutchison's exit the main story of this final table was that we had a couple amongst the final four as Lynskey and Rich are partners. At this stage it was Rich who was in the lead with almost four million of the 9,400,000 chips in play. The tournament would turn though on a fantastic call from Gomez in a huge pot against her.

She raised with [Jc][Th] and bet every street of a [7s][Qd][9d][2c][Ah] board setting Gomez in for a pot sized bet of around 1,400,000 on the river. The Spaniard tanked, tanked and tanked some more before making an excellent call with [Qc][Ts]. That pot was a real momentum swinger as it gave Gomez back the chip lead he'd lost and Gomez said of that hand "She was the chip leader, and everyone else had fairly even stacks, so I considered she might bluff open-ended straight draws and flush draws. If I win that pot, now I can open a lot of pots, so it's risky, but it paid off!"

Minutes later though the momentum was with Burnhill when he eliminated Lynskey in a cooler of a hand. The Aussie found [Ah][Qs] and three-bet shoved, Burnhill had pocket jacks and flopped a set for good measure.

So then there were three! Three handed play lasted for around 40 minutes with Gomez always in the ascendency and he had almost 60% of the chips in play when that final spectacular hand took place.

Below is a reminder of how much everyone won at today's final table. While they took the lion's share of the prize pool, 55 players shared £49,660. For a full breakdown, please click here.

You can catch up on all today's action by clicking here and here, but that's it for the UKIPT in 2015. Our next event takes place in Dublin, February 10th-14th and online qualifiers to that event will commence on Tuesday. Thanks for reading, we'll be back in 2016 for the final event of Season 5.

All photos are copyright of Mickey May

* CLICK TO REFRESH FOR LATEST UPDATES
* Day 1A consists of twelve 45 minute levels - currently playing level 8
* 144 of 214 players remain
* Late registration is closed
* This is an archive of earlier updates, current Day 1A updates can be found here

4:55pm: Wheeler can't spike
Level 8: Blinds 400-800, 100 ante

Down to just 6,000 Jason Wheeler moved all in from early position, Ross Loggie isolated all in from late position and everyone else folded.

Loggie: [Ad][Ac]
Wheeler: [3d][3s]

The [8d][Qd][Td][Ts][Kd] board brought no help for Wheeler and he was on his feet even before the river card arrived. --NW

Ross Loggie, 25,300

4:50pm: Big stack battle
The big stacks at Table 19, Vahid Karimkhanezand and Matt Davenport, just went to war in a four-bet pot, and at the end of it, the stacks had evened out a lot.

A couple of tablemates said that Davenport had cold four-bet preflop from the small blind. By the river, where a [4d][4s][9d][8h][3s] board rested, around 46,000 had made it into the middle. Davenport moved all in for 35,600 and went into statue mode as Karimkhanezand talked to him, "Show if I fold, no? Sick fold if I do it!" He ended up folding and lost of the table immediately entered into discussions about what each player could have had. --MC

Matt Davenport, 82,000
Vahid Karimkhanezand , 90,000

4:30pm: Chip leaders
Level 8: Blinds 400-800, 100 ante

Back in the day level eight was the final level on Day 1 of UKIPT Main Events, but the chip leaders heading into this level have five more levels to play before they - and everyone else - bags and tags.

Vahid Karimkhanezand is the only player to breach the 100,000 chip mark so far, he leads with 1110,000.

4:20pm: MacDonnell talks good, showdowns bad
Level 8: Blinds 400-800, 100 ante

Marc MacDonnell, according to former tablemates Chris Dowling and Emmett Davis, lost with aces to an opponent's pocket queens in the last level but talked a great game in doing so.

MacDonnell three-bet his opponent and then called the four-bet while verbally indicating it was probably a bad call. The flop fell ten high and MacDonnell led with more verbal and got his opponent to shove. Unfortunately for MacDonnell, his powers stopped there as a queen appeared on the river to send him to the rail. -- MC

3:58pm: Risk takes one as break comes
Level 7: Blinds 300-600, 75 ante

It seems as if Nick Abou Risk and Chris Dowling have been tangling in a fair few pots today. The latest one went the way of Abou Risk.

He called a Dowling raise and a 1,500 c-bet on an [ad][4c][js] flop. The [2c] turn was checked through before Abou Risk led for just 600 on the [2d] river. Dowling smiled and his opponent said, "Let me take this one, you can take the next one."

Dowling (still smiling) pointed at Abou Risk while folding and said to the dealer, "That's binding!"

The players are on their third break of the day. --MC

3:55pm: On the rail
Level 7: Blinds 300-600, 75 ante

There's no easy way to say this but, if you're a fan of any of the following it's bad news as: Richard Dubini, Joseph Lalor, Xiaoyang Luo, Ovidiu Balaj, Robert Finlay, Alexandre Viard, Gearld Haslauer, Kelvin Kerber, Michael Jurik, John Daly, Marc Macdonnell, James Foley, Aaron Gustavson, Rodrgio Perez, Mark Jones, Florian Bussmann, Frank Knight, Paul Leckey, Jared Jaffee and Nick Slade. -- NW

3:50pm: Pollock flush with chips
Level 7: Blinds 300-600, 75 ante

Earlier we reported that David Pollock had a stack of around 85,000, probably good for the chip lead, and he's now up to about 94,000 after winning a hand against Jack Sambrook.

It was button versus small blind and Pollock checked on the turn of a [6d][6h][Ad][4d] board, Sambrook bet 3,500 and Pollock then check-raised to 7,000 total. Call from Sambrook.

The [7c] completed the board and Pollock bet 7,000 and Sambrook quickly called. Pollock showed [Qd][2d] and Sambrook opened [Td][9d] before mucking. -NW

David Pollock, 94,000
Jack Sambrook, 27,000

3:47pm: Classic Andy Black
Level 7: Blinds 300-600, 75 ante

Back in the olden days of poker (when online players were still thought of as the value in the game) there were a lot more characters about. Unfortunately, as any game/sport gets more professional, a lot of those characters disappear. Andy Black is one of those characters and his personality dominated many tournaments just as his skills on the baize did.

He hasn't been seen as much in recent years but he's back on old form today. He was busy chatting to floor person Nick when he peaked at his holding and immediately moved in from middle position for 11,800. The action folded around to the big blind and he looked down and then up at Black, saying, "It's close."

That's when Black, sat with pocket threes (later shown) went into verbal overdrive trying to get his opponent to fold. After a couple of minutes where barely a breath was had, the big blind folded. Black showed his hand and the big blind admitted he folded pocket fives.

Standing up to talk to the blog, Black said he had a good idea he was potentially behind when he heard his opponent's opening line so used all the old verbal tricks to get him off it. He added he would've taken a race on but there was a good chance he had fours-through-sevens. -- MC

3:35pm: Doing it for Iran
Level 7: Blinds 300-600, 75 ante

There aren't too many Iranian players who enter the UKIPT but there are two of them in the field today. One of the two, Vahid Karimkhanezand, is doing really well as he's up to 60,000 after winning a three-way pot.

He and two opponents all put in 2,700 pre-flop and the flop fell [Kh][7c][3s]. A 3,800 c-bet from Karimkhanezand got the job done. --NW

3:20pm: The €5,000 event isn't getting any easier
Level 6: Blinds 250-500, 50 ante

The €5,000 event is now up to 15 runners but the field's only got tougher. That's because the seven additional players who've entered include: Adrian Mateos, Steve O'Dwyer, Mike McDonald, Ivan Luca, Connor Drinan and Nick Petrangelo. --NW

3:12pm: Need a Hand finding the venue, champ?
Level 6: Blinds 250-500, 50 ante

Fintan Hand was losing a small pot to Zoltan Gal but still had the time to inform the blog that his friend and a reigning UKIPT Dublin champ Kevin Killeen, who was recently sat on an adjacent table, had a little difficulty in finding his way to the venue today.

Apparently he got as far as the nearby Aviva sports stadium and then got his way to the back of the venue before finally finding his way in. Must be hard to find your way around your home city! At least he knows his way around a poker table. Killeen is sat alongside another UKIPT champ in the shape of Josh Hart, who has 48,000. -- MC

3pm: November Niner Neuville takes his seat
Level 6: Blinds 250-500, 50 ante

Pierre Neuville is a recent entry into the tournament. The Belgian had a fairytale run to the WSOP Main Event final table in 2015, where he eventually finished seventh for over $1,200,000. He's usually seen on the EPT, but as the UKIPT event leads into the EPT he's arrived early. He's up to 27,000 at the moment. --NW

2:50pm: Those we were just getting to know...
Level 6: Blinds 250-500, 50 ante

Don't worry guys, the festival is long: Dietrich Fast, Romain Lewis, David Lappin, Erini Kavvou, Brian Reinert, Marko Simic, Riccardo D'Urso, Horst Christ, Andres Viola, Jacob Bazeley, Patrick Brooks, Gareth Smith, Dan James, Peter Johnston, David Benington, Guillaume Diaz and Wei Jie have all busted. -- MC

2:38pm: Cody chopped in half
Level 5: Blinds 200-400, 50 ante

Jake Cody's dropped to around 11,600 chips after his two pair was no good against Sean Prendiville's rivered straight.

The action was three-way to a [kc][ah][2h] flop and Cody check-called a bet from Prendiville with the third party folding. The [8s] turn was checked through before Cody checked over the [qs] river to his opponent. Prendiville had 8,750 remaining and into the middle they went. Cody called with [ad][8d] but it was no good against his opponent's [js][ts]. -- MC

2:28pm: Carter and chips
Level 5: Blinds 200-400, 50 ante

Dan Carter's looking a little smug and why not. He's up to around 55,000 after getting a river bet paid off holding queen-ten, good for a full house on a [6s][6c][th][4d][tc] board.

A few other counts:

David Pollock, 85,000
Rasmus Agerskov, 12,000
Joao Simao, 37,000
Dermot Blain, 26,000
Aaron Gustavson, 24,500
-- MC

2:10pm: Beware the Greek with chips
Level 5: Blinds 200-400, 50 ante

Georgios Zisimopoulos has managed to achieve something that on the face of it should be impossible. He's been on a heater over the last year but has mostly flown under the radar whilst riding the wave.

It all started for him at EPT11 Malta were he took down the IPT Main Event, winning €142,205. Since then he's gone on to win two €5,000 side events on the EPT, made a further nine side event final tables on the EPT and finish second in the Amsterdam Masters Classic. In total he's racked up over $850,000 in winnings since the start of 2015.

He's off to a good start here in Dublin too as he's already up to 46,000. He's got UKIPT4 Isle of Man runner-up Ciaran Heaney at his table and Paul Leckey. -NW

Georgios Zisimopoulos - 46,000
Ciaran Heaney - 27,075
Paul Leckey - 8,400

2pm: Ung empties the clip
Level 5: Blinds 200-400, 50 ante
Gareth Jennings believed Seng Ung had a hand but it took a river shove for him to finally believe.

Ung raised to 900 from middle position and was called in three spots, including Jennings in the next seat. Ung continued for 1,800 on a [5d][7h][3d] flop and was only called by Jennings. He called another 3,500 on the [2c] turn but snap folded after Ung shoved for around 10,000 on the [th] river.

That put Ung up to around 25,000. Other notables at the table:

Steven van Zadelhoff - 17,000
Matt Davenport - 42,000
--MC

1:45pm: Play resumes
Level 5: Blinds 200-400, 50 ante
Players are back in their seats for the second third of the day's play.

1:26pm: Break time
Level 4: Blinds 150-300, 25 ante

That's the end of level four and players are now on a 20 minute break. --NW

1:25pm: Gone
Level 4: Blinds 150-300, 25 ante

A total of 193 players have entered the tournament so far - late registration is open until the start of level seven - and the rate of exits has gone up a notch in level four as the blinds and antes start to eat into the starting stack.

Among those who've exited so far today are: Yew Kan, Choukri Chergui, Vytautas Aganauskas, Steven Campbell, David Chaussouant, Dimitri Miuccio and David Brady. --NW

1:20pm: Oi, get back to work you!
Level 4: Blinds 150-300, 25 ante

PokerStars' Christin Maschmann, who's soon to relocate to Dublin from the Isle of Man office, has seen her UKIPT adventure come to a premature end. It was clear she was in trouble from the following tweet:

Ran AK on TK885 board into Aces. Only 10BB left. #FFS #UKIPTDublin #NeedASpinUp 🍀🍀🍀

— Christin Maschmann (@DavinaDarr) February 10, 2016

Then the blog ran into her on the sidelines and her face said it all. She informed us that she was down to five big blinds and in the big blind when she picked up ace-ten. She moved all in after a raise but her opponent had her dominated with ace-king and there was no hope for the German native. Maschmann will be back for the ladies event on Saturday, but until then, she'll be working at the information desk in her role as Ideation Manager. So if you have any great poker ideas, pop by and see her! -- MC

1:10pm: Sick sit and go
Level 4: Blinds 150-300, 25 ante

There are nine events on the EPT Dublin Festival schedule today, the biggest of which is a €5,000 hold'em event. So far there are just eight entrants in that event but what an eight! How's this for a line-up:

Andrew Lichtenberger
Charlie Carrel
Ben Heath
Chance Kornuth
Joao Vieira
Paul Newey
Andrew Leathem
Kyle Frey

Tough crowd!

One player who wouldn't look out of place in that field is Jason Wheeler, the American qualified for the UKIPT Main Event and has recently taken his seat in that. --NW

1:05pm: Good turn for Wenzelburger
Level 4: Blinds 150-300, 25 ante

With a [Qs][5c][2s][Th] board on the felt Philipp Wenzelburger moved all in for 10,950 into a pot roughly 14,000. It was a heads-up pot against Chris Simpson and the latter asked for a count before making the call.

Simpson: [Kc][Kd]
Wenzelburger: [Qh][Ts]

The German had turned two-pair to take the lead and he held onto it on the [4d] river. After that hand Simpson is down to 11,500 whilst Wenzelburger is up to 36,000. --NW

12:55pm: Dowling assesses the Risk
Level 4: Blinds 150-300, 25 ante

"He said he was afraid of you, now he plays every pot with you!" commented Marc MacDonnell after Chris Dowling took Nick Abou Risk off a hand on the river.

Burak Kavas had limped in from second position before Dowling raised from the next seat. Abou Risk called in the big blind and Kavas called to make it a three-way affair heading to the flop. It spread [9d][td][7d] and all three checked to the [jh] river where Abou-Risk led for 1,400. Kavas folded to leave Dowling make a considered call to see the board complete with the [9s]. Abou-Risk checked, and then folded, to Dowling who bet 3,200.

Emmett Davis can also be found sat at this table to make it the trickiest in the room, as far as we can tell/judge. -- MC

Best welcome home present I could ask for. Got @ballymorechris @nickabourisk and @Irisheman on my table for #UKIPTDublin

— Marc Macdonnell (@sluglife87) February 10, 2016

12:45pm: Chips!
Level 4: Blinds 150-300, 25 ante

Plenty of big names amongst the 177 players who've entered so far on Day 1A. A round-up of some of the names and notables in the field can be seen below.

12:35pm: Blain hoping for a better craic of it in Dublin
Level 4: Blinds 150-300, 25 ante

Dermot Blain is a household name in poker and a regular on the EPT, it wasn't always that way though. In fact the last time the EPT was in town - October 2007 - was the first time Blain had played at an EPT festival. "I played it but I didn't play the Main Event because I busted my bankroll," he told the PokerStars Blog.

"I was playing 2/5 and 5/10 cash games and a Swedish guy flopped three kings against my flush draws three times and wiped me out. I'm hoping for some redemption," he said with a smile. He's at the same table as Jake Cody and currently has around 26,300. --NW

12:30pm: All about the antes
Level 3: Blinds 100-200, 25 ante

When the antes kick into a tournament, the action normally spikes as there's more chips on offer to be won. That "extra" action can result in the rate of eliminations going up per level. Four players have departed in level 3 and they are: Padraigh Cody-Lally, Shakhabiddin Muradov, Noel Murphy and Evangelos Tsairis. -- MC

12:15pm: Smith sends Yamauti to the rail
Level 3: Blinds 100-200, 25 ante

"All in on table two," was the call from the dealer. This sort of action this early in a tournament is rare, so I wandered over to the table to get the low down on what was happening.

Gareth Smith was the player who was all in, he'd shoved on the river for about 12,600 into a pot of roughly 8,500. His opponent, Laercio Yamauti, was eyeing up the [Kd][Ac][2d][4d][Ts] board and debating what to do. He actually had less than Smith - it looked to be right around 10,000 - and after about a minute he called.

Smith showed [Ad][9d] for the nuts and Yamauti tapped the table, as it was an all in he had to turn his hand over and he revealed [As][7s] as he left the table. --NW

12:05pm: The UKIPT has arrived
Level 3: Blinds 100-200, 25 ante

If one had to define the UKIPT using only player names, three of the first names of most people's lips would be Jake Cody along with serial qualifiers Dara O'Kearney and David Lappin.

The Team PokerStars Pro and the local lads were seen waiting for their seat allocation along with former UKIPT champion Josh Hart and three-time UKIPT finalist Chris Dowling. They may be late but at least they can brag that they made the antes! -- MC

11:30am: Day 1A up to 160 entries as first break hits
Level 2: Blinds 75-150

Players continued to trickle in from the fresh winter air outside, taking off scarves and jackets, readying themselves for battle.

Peter Eichhardt, who narrowly missed out (10th) on the EPT12 Barcelona final table has taken his seat a couple of tables along from Marc MacDonnell, who felt similar joy/disappointment at EPT12 Prague Main Event(14th). Other players in before the first 20-minute break included Dermot Blain, Matt Davenport and Zoltan Gal. The one and only player to bust before the break was Andrea Gilligan. -- MC

11:10am: Don't judge a poker player by his appearance
Level 2: Blinds 75-150

When online poker first started becoming popular online qualifiers were looked down on by their live poker playing counterparts. Online qualifier was just another way to say 'fish' or 'fun player'. Over time that changed, with the reputation doing a complete 360. Online players then began to look down on live players as dinosaurs of the game.

Now I think there's one section of poker players who are still looked upon as being generally bad, I'm talking about 'old' players. Five years ago the general consensus was that if a player at your table had grey hair he was likely passive, tight and generally easy to play against.

Increasingly I don't think that's the case anymore. Older players - especially those who're retired, self-employed or semi-employed - have lots of time to devote to the game, plenty of resources to learn from and are increasingly using that time to put in hours grinding online.

Take Joseph Lalor for instance. He's a 55-year-old computer software writer who lives in Dublin, he's playing today and he's busy doing a crossword between hands. You'd think he was probably a recreational poker player who's taking his shot at a UKIPT as it's in his home town. You'd be wrong.

He got into poker at school although back then it was draw and stud poker. However, he started playing online intermittently about ten years ago and began taking it more seriously about five years later. Since then he's had much success (his largest online score is $130,000) and he's made the final table of the Sunday Million twice - once when it was a WCOOP event.

We know all this because Lalor final tabled UKIPT5 Bristol in August, where he finished fifth winning £16,000.

Old guys, and gals, can play too. -- NW

10:55am: Get in cheap
Level 2: Blinds 75-150

The €1,100 buy in for this UKIPT may look small when you consider the levels of some of the tournament buy ins throughout the EPT Dublin Poker Festival, but it's still a considerable about of money to many. When money was tight as a student, many of us compared the cost of everything to a pint of beer ("I'm not paying that, I could drink four beers for that!". Apparently, a pint of Guinness in Temple Bar will set you back €5.50, which means you could drink 200 pints for the cost of an entry ticket.

Never fear though as you can always qualify via a live satellite here at the RDS in Dublin. As written below they are scheduled for today at 16.00 GMT and 21.30 GMT. The same tournaments yesterday generated 27 seats between them but today's are expected to generate many more. Get involved and come and join the fun on the cheap. -- MC

10:40am: Taking the Risk of turning up early
Level 1: Blinds 50-100

One of the 110 players who've taken their seats during the opening level is two-time UKIPT champion Nick Abou Risk. He used to work for Full Tilt and is seated at the same table as PokerStars Staff Member Christin Maschmann.

"I haven't got up this early in forever," said Abou Risk when we passed by his table. -- NW

10:20am: Well done to 90 of you!
Level 1: Blinds 50-100

As was mentioned in the opening post, the UKIPT has a pre-dawn start time today. Okay, maybe that's not quite true but us poker folk barely know that 10am exists, or if we do, it's only witnessed with our own eyes when making a mad dash to make a hotel breakfast on tour.

Therefore, congratulations to the 90-odd players that actually made it to the RDS for the start of play today. Specifically (because we recognise who they are) well done to PokerStars staff member Christin Maschmann; local Irish poker star Andy Black; former EPT player of the year Fernando Brito; former UKIPT London finalist Rasmus Agerskov and Dan Carter. -- MC

09:50am: Top o' the mornin' to ya
Good morning! It's a brisk sunny winter's day here in Dublin and an earlier start than usual on the UKIPT. For most folk 10am would be considered a late start but in the world of poker 10am is positively the crack of dawn.

The UKIPT Main Event is the first of the big events in the 67 tournament schedule that makes up the UKIPT/EPT Dublin festival that runs until the 20th February. Whilst the EPT last touched down in Dublin in October 2007, the UKIPT has been heading to Dublin on the regular and was last here at the end of February 2015.

There have been some memorable final tables in Dublin, Max Silver obliterated the final table competition in four hours, Joeri Zandvliet won his second UKIPT title here and last year we had, perhaps, the most memorable UKIPT final table of all time.

In the red corner was Max Silver, he just loves playing in Dublin on the UKIPT, one win and a fourth prior to last year and he was chasing his second UKIPT title in his home city, a win that would put him in exalted company.

In the blue corner was Kevin Killeen, one of the bright young things of Irish poker and a tour regular who'd not had a big result on the UKIPT...yet. Backed by a vociferous rail, who were all dressed in onesies, they sung their man to victory: "We don't take silver we only take gold," was the chant that lives long in the memory.

Over the next six days we're hopeful this edition of UKIPT Dublin will more than match those that have gone before.

Key UKIPT5 Dublin Facts:

- 25,000 starting stack
- Blinds starting at 50/100 for 250 big blinds
- Levels are 45 minutes on Day 1 and they'll be 12 of them. From Day 2 onwards levels increase to 60 minutes.
- Day 1A is today, Day 1B takes place tomorrow, the field will then combine for the first time on Friday. We'll reach the money during the 10 levels of play on Day 2 and then play down to a final table on Saturday. Sunday is a rest day, and then on Monday the final table will play out on the TV table on EPTLive with cards-up coverage and bring Season 5 of the UKIPT to a close. Cue mad celebrations and swigging of champagne from the trophy (possibly).
- Full UKIPT5 Dublin schedule here.
- There's a boat load of other events today including a €5,000 (!) Hold'em event and two live satellites to the Main Event tonight. Those satellites start at 16.00 GMT and 21.30 GMT.
- It's not all about the poker here in Dublin. There are plenty of #StarsFun activities including Dodgeball Trampolining. Yes, you read that right Dodgeball Trampolining.

PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT5 Dublin: Marc Convey and Nick Wright. Photos by Mickey May. Follow the PokerStars Blog on Twitter: @PokerStarsBlog

* CLICK TO REFRESH FOR LATEST UPDATES
* Day 1A is over. Day 1B starts at 10am Thursday. You can read all about Day 1A here.
* 52 of 214 players made it through
* You can catch up with Level 1-8 coverage here

9:20pm: Done for the day
Level 12: Blinds 600-1,200, 200 ante

Roughly 54 players survived Day 1A. They'll be back at noon on Friday for Day 2. We'll be back tomorrow at 10am for Day 1B. Before then though a wrap of the today's action will be forthcoming.

9:07pm: Last four hands
Level 12: Blinds 600-1,200, 200 ante

The tournament clock has been paused and they'll be four more hands before play is done for the day. --NW

9:05pm: Heads-up in the €5,000 side event
Level 12: Blinds 600-1,200, 200 ante

Just two players remain in the stacked €5,000 event and it's Mike McDonald versus Joao Vieira for the title. The winner will take €36,730, whilst the runner-up gets €21,830. Ivan Luca finished third, the Argentinian winning €14,550 for his efforts. -- NW

8:55pm: Felted
Level 12: Blinds 600-1,200, 200 ante

Down to just 72 players now with Dirk Gerritse, Alan Teffaud, Zoltan Gal, Emil Patel, Michael Naughton, Rodrigo Kipper, Barry Donovan, Derwin Hayes, Keith Maguire and Fintan Hand the latest to exit. --NW

8:45pm: Chipped up
Level 12: Blinds 600-1,200, 200 ante

It's likely the end of day chip leader won't be decided until the final minutes of play but the following are all throwing their hat in the ring for that honour:

Dan Carter, 210,000
Vladimir Velikov, 190,000
Peter Eichhardt, 175,000
Ranno Sootla, 170,000
Matt Davenport, 160,000

8:35pm: Last level of the night
Level 12: Blinds 600-1,200, 200 ante

Almost there! We're into the final level of the night. The average stack is a shade over 66,000--NW

8:30pm: It's a long way from Playa del Carmen
Level 11: Blinds 600-1,200, 200 ante

What do you get when you pitch together an Englishman, Irishman and Mexico? The answer is Kevin Killeen, Scott Margereson and an apartment in Playa del Carmen.

The two used to be flatmates in Mexico, both are in the main event today and chugging along nicely. Killeen's been moved tables and is now sat two to the left of another fine Irish player, Dermot Blain to be precise, and he has around 75,000.

Margereson, who won two WCOOP events in 2015, is fairing even better as he's up to 85,000. -- NW

8:20pm: Connolly more than quadruples up
Level 11: Blinds 600-1,200, 200 ante

Declan Connolly got amazing value from his hand after he three-bet all in for 7,600 as he was called by the original raiser and three other opponents, before getting there.
The flop fanned [4d][8d][4s] and one of the callers - the big-stacked Vladimir Velikov - led out for 10,800 from the big blind. Jose Lopez Tapia was in no mood to mess around and moved all in for over 100,000. Velikov, who had a massive 212,00 behind and could afford to call, tanked before he folded.

Tapia: [kh][ks] for an over pair.
Connolly: [ad][kd] for a flush draw.

The board ran out [2d][qc] to make the Irishman's flush. -- MC

8pm: Busted
Level 11: Blinds 600-1,200, 200 ante

The field of 214 has been reduced to just 81 with two levels left to play. Among those who've felt the icy breath of the hangman's noose on their poker tournament life are: Liam Hooks, Gary Coulahan, Georgios Karakousis, Stephen Woodhead, Jacqueline Cachia, Tommy O'Rourke, Ross Loggie, Georgios Zisimopoulos, Jack Sambrook, Seamus Cahill, Ivan Deyra and Ian Marmion. --NW

7.45pm: Oh no Mo. Charania busts
Level 11: Blinds 800-1,600, 200 ante

Table 6's talent pool has been diluted somewhat with the elimination of Mohsin Charania. The American pro got unlucky with kings a short while ago, and it was big-slick that finished him off.

Peter Eichhardt played executioner and he filled the blog in on the 150k-pot. A player raised with pocket jacks before Charania three-bet with ace-king. Eichhardt's cold four-bet with queens was enough to force out the original raiser but not Charania who jammed. Eichhardt called and saw an ace appear as the first community card, followed by a lovely looking queen. -- MC

7:35pm: Big stacks
Level 10: Blinds 600-1,200, 200 ante

A circuit of the room has unearthed the following big stacks:

Ranno Sootla, 195,000
David Pollock, 176,000
Vahid Karimkhanezand, 163,000
Joao Simao, 158,000
Vladimir Velikov, 153,000
Frederic Bertrand, 130,000

7:25pm: Big pairs on table 6
Table 6 continues to offer up big hands and action, even if a lot of the faces are new. Former EPT Grand Final champion Mohsin Charania has joined the table, but lost with a big pair, just before another newbie - Fintan Hand - won win a big pair.

Charania and Erik Olofsson had made it to the river of a board that read [kh][qc][tc][4s][5s]. The former checked from the blinds and called after the latter bet 18,000 from early position. Olofsson opened [ad][js] for a flopped straight bettering Charania's [kc][ks] for top set.

The very next hand saw Hand raise to 3,000 from the hijack and Peter Eichhardt defended his big blind. Both checked the [3d][ad][3s] flop before Eichhardt check-called 2,300 on the [qd] turn. The board completed with the [ac] and both players checked. Hand opened [qc][qh] and scooped with his full house.

Mohsin Charania, 57,000
Erik Olofsson, 78,000
Fintan Hand, 70,000
Peter Eichhardt, 56,000
Ranno Sootla - 195,000
Chris Dowling - 18,700
-- MC

7:05pm: Back we go
Level 10: Blinds 600-1,200, 200 ante

Fed and watered the players are now back in their seats and action has restarted. --NW

5:45pm: Dinner break
Level 9: Blinds 500-1,000, 100 ante

The remaining players are now on a 75 minute dinner break. Play will re-start at roughly 7pm. --NW

5:40pm: Defending champion still in
Level 9: Blinds 500-1,000, 100 ante

There's been a few good UKIPT title defences in Dublin on the UKIPT and Kevin Killeen, who triumphed last time the tour was in town, is still going strong on Day 1A this time round. He's got about 28,000. After he won his UKIPT title he moved to Mexico but is back in Ireland at the moment.

"Living here at the moment, I'll stay here to after the Irish Open at least," he told us. "After that probably Vegas and then maybe back to Mexico. We'll see."

As reported below the other UKIPT Main Event winners in the field today - Nick Abou Risk and Josh Hart - are both out. However, we do still have an EPT champion in the field in the shape of Mohsin Charania. He's got around 71,000. -- NW

4:55pm: Long dinner break for....
Level 9: Blinds 500-1,000, 100 ante

Those who failed to make the upcoming dinner break included: John Hanaphy, Anders Overland, Sean Prendiville, Rasmus Agersov, Counstrain-Jean Edmond, Bruno Lima, Eldon Orr, Vaino Nevanlinna, Cesar De Leon, Victor Pastor, Jussi Nevanlinna, Senh Ung, Gareth Jennings, Andy Black, Chris Simpson, Josh Hart, Laurence Ryan, Steven van Zadelhoff, Miguel Suarez, Ezequiel Lebed, Matis Ruzzi, Jason Wheeler (pictured), David Burke, Keith Brennan, Anthony Ainscough, Guillaume Nolet, Emmett Davis, Jochen Kaiser, Dan Borlan, Ryan McEathron, Alexandre Schifa, Ricardo Ibanez, Burak Kavas, Donal Kennedy, Alan White, Ronan Gilligan, Pierre Neuville, Sszoto Merceron, Frederic Bertrand and Mark Ballesty. -- MC

5:30pm: There's a new chippie in town as Abou Risks busts
Level 9: Blinds 500-1,000, 100 ante

Nick Abou Risk will not become a three-time UKIPT champion in his hometown after he busted in a big pot that made Ranno Sootla the (likely) new chip leader.

Sootla told the blog that Abou Risk raised from under the gun and he defended his big blind to head to a [k][j][5] flop that contained two hearts. A four landed on the turn and Sootla bet 18,000 (into what he thought was 23k) and called when Abou Risk shoved for 30,000.

Sootla opened king-jack and survived a blank river against Abou Risk's ace-king.

Ranno Sootla, 160,000
Nick Abou Risk, eliminated
-- MC

5:15pm: Cody can't stop the rot
Level 9: Blinds 500-1,000, 100 ante

At the very end of level eight we lost Team PokerStars Pro Jake Cody. Sadly for him is stack only went in one direction today. Still he's got the chance to bounce back tomorrow - literally - as he's going to be taking part in the Dodgeball Trampolining.

Gg either ran into it a lot or got run over #UKIPTDublin

— Jake Cody (@JakeCody) February 10, 2016

5pm: End of the road for Ruzzi
Level 9: Blinds 500-1,000, 100 ante

I arrived at the table to see the cards already on their backs, it was Matias Ruzzi who was all in, the Argentinian had [Ah][Js] whilst Amgd Nadr had [As][Qc].

The [6c][7h][6s][Kh][Qh] board eliminated Ruzzi and boosted Nadr to 70,000. --NW

Key UKIPT5 Dublin Facts:

- 25,000 starting stack
- Blinds starting at 50/100 for 250 big blinds
- Levels are 45 minutes on Day 1 and they'll be 12 of them. From Day 2 onwards levels increase to 60 minutes.
- Day 1A is today, Day 1B takes place tomorrow, the field will then combine for the first time on Friday. We'll reach the money during the 10 levels of play on Day 2 and then play down to a final table on Saturday. Sunday is a rest day, and then on Monday the final table will play out on the TV table on EPTLive with cards-up coverage and bring Season 5 of the UKIPT to a close. Cue mad celebrations and swigging of champagne from the trophy (possibly).
- Full UKIPT5 Dublin schedule here.
- There's a boat load of other events today including a €5,000 (!) Hold'em event and two live satellites to the Main Event tonight. Those satellites start at 16.00 GMT and 21.30 GMT.
- It's not all about the poker here in Dublin. There are plenty of #StarsFun activities including Dodgeball Trampolining. Yes, you read that right Dodgeball Trampolining.

PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT5 Dublin: Marc Convey and Nick Wright. Photos by Mickey May. Follow the PokerStars Blog on Twitter: @PokerStarsBlog

The second day of the EPT Dublin festival took place today and central to the day's festivities was Day 1A of the UKIPT Main Event. The tour is in its fifth season and Dublin has been an ever-present stop, producing four champions in the shape of Max Silver, Joeri Zandvliet, Richard Evans and Kevin Killeen.

The latter was one of the 214 players to take to the felt today and by the end of twelve 45-minute levels, 52 remained. Vladimir Velikov has the overnight bragging rights of being chip leader after he amassed an impressive 301,500, 12 times more than starting stack. He was potentially the leader before he cracked an opponent's aces at the death when he flopped a straight with jack-nine. The Bulgarian is no stranger to success as he's a former Sunday Million winner and at December's Eureka Prague he scored a €170,180 payday by finishing second in the High Roller event.

Other big stacks and notables to make Day 2 were: Joao Simao (253,600), David Pollock (240,000), Vladas Burneikis (199,800), Ranno Sootla (191,300), Dan Carter (186,600), Peter Eichhardt (170,300), Domenico Vivolo (169,500), Erik Olofsson (160,600), Scott Margereson (123,600), Dermot Blalin (111,200), Chris Dowling (103,800) and reigning champion Kevin Killeen (48,000). Full overnight chip counts can be viewed here.

Mr UKIPT himself Jake Cody played today but had one of those days at the tables. He busted midway through the day but a lot of the damage occurred earlier when he turned two pair only for his opponent, Sean Prendiville, to river a straight. No doubt we'll be seeing the Team PokerStars Pro in the UKIPT High Roller and EPT Main Event, two of the marquee tournaments of a festival that promises to be Ireland's biggest and richest ever.

Cody wasn't the only player to find it a struggle today. Former champions Nick Abou Risk and Josh Hart both got off to a good starts but busted with decent holdings; Steven van Zadelhoff recently won a triple crown online but couldn't transfer that hot streak over to the live arena; Andy Black was back on vocal form but the cards didn't fall his way; Marc Macdonnell's aces couldn't hold against an opponent's queens and former EPT Grand final champion Mohsin Charania went from big stack to out after losing big pots with kings and ace-king in quick succession.

Other notables to hit the rail included: Emil Patel, Jack Sambrook, Rasmus Agerskov, Senh Ung, Jason Wheeler, Emmett Davis, Aaron Gustavson, Jared Jaffe, Dietrich Fast, Jacob Bazeley and November Niner Pierre Neuville.

This UKIPT stop has been predicted to have a big turnout by the powers that be, so a packed room is expected tomorrow as the tournament aims for four-figure status. The 10am GMT start time stays in place for one more day so that should help stagger the flow of hopefuls. Another 12 levels will be played out before all survivors will convene for Day two on Friday.

Join the blog back here then, but for now, click the links below to catch up on the day's action:

Level 1-8 updates
Level 9-12 updates

PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT5 Dublin: Marc Convey and Nick Wright. Photos by Mickey May. She's been dosing up on Penicillin for the last five days so is ready to fight any bacteria who try to steal her pictures! Follow the PokerStars Blog on Twitter: @PokerStarsBlog

* CLICK HERE FOR CURRENT UPDATES
* Day 1B consists of twelve 45-minute levels, this is an archive of levels 1-7.
* Day 1B players (779 so far - a record for single day attendance in a UKIPT Main Event)
* Late registration has closed

4pm: All about the nines
Level 7: Blinds 300-600 ante 75

As the time ticked down on level seven there was a big pot brewing between three players on table 35. Matthew Willis had opened to 1,325 only to have two players shove all-in behind him.

Audrius Valancius was all-in for 10,425, whilst Georgios Sotiropoulos had 10,550 over the line.Willis got counts of the shoves, tanked and then folded the Hellmuth - two black nines.

Valancius: [Ah][7d]
Sotiropoulos [9d][9h]

A [2s][Jd][Jh][6d][3c] board kept Sotiropoulos in front, Willis is one of the chip leaders as he's sitting on a stack of roughly 90,000. --NW

3:57pm: All together now
Level 7: Blinds 300-600 ante 75

Just before the break I arrived at the table to see Cezary Szkup all in for around 6,000 with [Ac][8d] and Asif Warris trying to send him out the door with [Ks][Jh].

The [5s][6h][7h] flop was decent enough for Szkup and the [4h] turn even better. It gave Warris a flush draw though and whilst he missed it on the river, the [8c] meant they both played the board. "You know what they say," began Warris, who's been a #EPTLive Super Fan in the past. "Everyone loves a chopped pot."

He attempts to cajole the table into a sing along largely fell on deaf ears though. Party poopers. -- NW

3:55pm: Break time
The players have 20 minutes to refresh.

3:50pm: ElkY couldn't fold kings
Level 7: Blinds 300-600 ante 75

"There was a lot of action but it's hard to fold kings, even for 45 big blinds."

These were the words of Team PokerStars Pro ElkY in pressroom after he was eliminated. He went on to explain that he flatted an under the gun raise to 1,300 (from UTG+1) before a player in the next seat squeezed to 3,300. Then a player in the small blind four-bet to 7,500 and that was enough to oust the original raiser but not ElkY, who moved all in for 26,000. The player to his left re-shoved with his aces and the small blind folded. -- MC

3:30pm: Pablo Gordillo the last player in
Level 7: Blinds 300-600 ante 75

Level 7 has gotten underway which means registration has closed, with Pablo Gordillo getting a seat ticket with seconds to spare.

The board shows 779 entries for Day 1B taking the number up to 993. The four-figure sweat isn't over yet though as all the entries need to be verified and any no-shows added on to that number. -- MC

3:25pm: Sykes avoids getting flushed away
Level 6: Blinds 250-500 ante 50

Former cash game pro and UKIPT Edinburgh finalist, Jamie Sykes, has managed a double up to around 78,000 after his aces held up versus Martin Henderson.

Around 18,000 made it into the middle by time the two players and one more saw a [5d][js][2d] flop spread in front of them. The chips went in (between Sykes and Henderson) and the cards were flipped up.

Sykes: [ah][as]
Henderson: [ad][qd]

Sykes bit his nails as the board ran out [2c][jh]. -- MC

3:20pm: More exits
Level 7: Blinds 300-600 ante 75

The Poker Gods care not for reputation be you a big name or playing your first event they'll smack you down to the felt. The latest to feel their wrath are: Chris Moorman, Chance Kornuth, John Wong, Ivan Tononi, Marian Fridrich, Sanchez Alonso, Kuljinder Sidhu, Paul Skipper, Michael Wang, Lee Egan, Robbie Renehan, Darryll Fish, Mike Hill, Fabian Ortiz, Ognyan Dimov, David Hill, Fraser Macintyre, Jude Ainsworth, Dave Maudlin, Jannick Wrang and Neil Strike. --NW

3:05pm: Worley-Roberts plays a booby-shaker of a hand to double
Level 6: Blinds 250-500 ante 50

Paul Michaelis and Deborah Worley-Roberts played an interesting hand with the former almost getting the latter off the best hand. She called, doubled, and was pretty darn happy about it.

The two were heads up to the turn with a board reading [5c][kh][3h][9s] and 15,500 chips were looking for an owner. Michaelis was in the big blind and set Worley-Roberts all in for her remaining 14,000-or-so. The American went into the tank and talked the hand through to herself as the table watched. Then she picked up her stack and banged them over the line.

She made a good call with [kc][jh] as Michaelis could only muster the [ac][jd].

Worley-Roberts stood up and said, "Yeah baby, pay the lady!" Then she acted out the line, "That's a booby shaker!" before she sat back down adding, "Nice try sweetheart."

"At least I tried," Michaelis responded

"That you did, but that smirking preflop gave you away."

"What's smirking?" asked the German.

"Smirking. It's like twerking but you do it with your face!"

The whole table erupted with laughter. Classic Worley-Roberts. -- MC

3pm: Doubling in Dublin
Level 6: Blinds 250-500 ante 50

Some players just seem to do well in certain cities. Maybe it's a confidence thing after one big result that makes another follow. Maybe it's just variance, maybe it's...well who knows. One player for who there's certainly something in the water in Dublin is Ian Simpson.

The Geordie, who finished runner-up at UKIPT4 London, has recorded two of his three biggest results in this city. In 2012 he finished fourth in the Irish Open and came back in 2013 to finish what he'd started and won the whole thing. Oh and he also proposed to his girlfriend as soon as he'd won it. What a guy!

He's got a smile on his face today and no wonder, he's doubled his starting stack and is playing around 50,000. --NW

2:50pm: Geilich gives us the run down
Level 6: Blinds 250-500 ante 50

A three-way pot involving Tom Hall was playing out at the table where Ludovic Geilich was sat. The Scot, who won UKIPT Marbella in Season 4 somehow wasn't involved in the hand, and stepped away to get a drink of water.

When he returned he gave us his assessment of the table: "Tough table this," he began. "You've got Jabra (Tom Hall) and Thomas Butzhammer. Also the guy in seat two (Tyler Longo) is good and the guy to Tom's left (Jelcides Monteiro) is decent.

Monteiro was actually one of the players involved in the hand against Hall, those two and Patrick Vincent (small blind) were looking at a [7c][9s][7d] flop, Vincent checked, Hall (big blind) bet 1,400 into a pot of ~4,000 and Monteiro (under-the-gun) was the only caller.

The two players then checked it down on the [Kd] turn and [Td] river and Monteiro's pocket jacks were good. --NW

2:30pm: Not everyone can have the luck of the Irish!
Level 6: Blinds 250-500, 50 ante

So long, farewell to: Ari Engel, Martin Guth, Hak-Mann Lee, Uri Gilboa, Thomas Patridge, James O'Callaghan, Ilan Boujenah, Richard Hawes, Mikael Koistinen, Miguel Silva, Darren Willis, David Greene, Stephen Pearce, Caroline Harris, Aaron Spence, Anthony Lynn, Victor Ilyukhin, Sean McCarthy, Scott Montgomery, Georges Yazbeck, Michal Rudnik, Martin Brader, Damien Scott, Majid Iqbal, Amanda Sidark, Simon Brooks and Peter Roche. -- MC

Want to start your own UKIPT campaign? Sign up for PokerStars and start your journey. Click here to get an account.

2:15pm: Two more EPT champions in the house
Level 5: Blinds 200-400, 50 ante

A short time ago ElkY took the total number of EPT champions who've entered this event to eight. You can now up that figure to ten as we just spied Jannick Wrang picking up his seat allocation. The Dane won EPT8 Campione in 2012 where he picked up a winners' cheque of €640,000.

And shortly before that Dominik Panka entered the fray. --NW

2pm: Chip leaders
Level 5: Blinds 200-400, 50 ante

After four levels of play Andreas Wuerger has managed to spin his stack up to an impressive 80,500. Notables who've been moving in the right direction include: Thomas Finneran (73,000), Diego Gomez (64,000), Sebastian Pauli (56,000), Dean Hutchison (50,000) and Max Silver (50,000).

1:50pm: We got a record!
Level 5: Blinds 200-400, 50 ante

Late registration doesn't close until 3.15pm but already we've broken a record. The official number of entrants so far in Day 1B is 740 which breaks the figure for the highest ever single day attendance on in a UKIPT Main Event. The previous record was 736, set at UKIPT4 London 2. --NW

1:42pm: Play resumes; ElkY in the house!
Level 5: Blinds 200-400, 50 ante

Here we go : @PokerStarsEPT #UKIPTDublin Day1b ! Green #Mau5 is out for the occasion to match the Irish colours 👍🇮🇷 pic.twitter.com/hU02BfeADk

— Bertrand Grospellier (@elkypoker) February 11, 2016

1:22pm: Break time
Level 4: Blinds 150-300 ante 25

The players have reached the end of level four and are now on a 20 minute break.

1:20pm: All out
Level 4: Blinds 150-300 ante 25

The pace of exits has picked up in levels three and four with: Michael Farrelly, Mudasser Hussain, Liam Chevalier, Tomas Pleticha, Lars Jurgens, Gustave Fayard, Sai Chung, Tim Reilly, Joey Lovelady, Cathal Young, Davide Marchi, Richard Jones, Gareth Caldwell, Daniel Karacic, Dmitry Zotov, Alexander Tikhoniouk and Paul McTaggart all exiting the tournament. --NW

1:15pm: More counts from the main room
Level 4: Blinds 150-300 ante 25

Despite the main room being absolutely rammed, it's very easy to move between tables and there are no 'out of reach' tables like there can be at some events. That means we've been able to weave our way through the room getting a bunch of chip counts for you:

Dean Hutchison, 52,000
Thiago Nishijima, 44,000
James Akenhead , 43,000
Jamie Sykes, 38,000
Ari Engel, 33,300
Tim Chung, 31,000
Gareth Chantler, 29,000
Alex Goulder, 27,700
David Vamplew, 27,300
Tomasz Raniszewski, 25,400
Adam Owen, 22,400
Matti De Meulder, 22,050
Vicente Delgado, 21,800
Mike Hill, 21,000
Keith Johnson, 19,300
Daniel Stacey, 19,000
Victor Ilyukhin, 12,500

1pm: Bouncebackability from Macintyre
Level 4: Blinds 150-300 ante 25

"This is heaps," said Fraser Macintyre to me as I eyed up his stack of 9,500. Doesn't seem like heaps given the starting stack is 25,000 but Macintyre went on to explain his statement. "First hand I played I had aces cracked by kings all-in pre-flop. I was down to 1,200 so this is a spin up."

It continued the very next hand as holding [7c][5d] Macintyre got in cheap from the big blind, flopped three sevens and rivered a full house. He's up to 12,000 as a result. --NW

12:51pm: Tricky table and some counts
Level 4: Blinds 150-300 ante 25

Table 43 is the one that stands out as one of the trickier in the room. Sat there you'll find: Richard Hawes (25,500), Ben Jenkins (26,000), Daragh Davey (24,000), Charlie Carrel (23,000) and Padraig O'Neill (22,000), with the last four names taking up the last four seats on the table.

Other counts from that side of the room:

Eugene Katchalov, 24,500
Tom Kitt, 23,500
Filipe Ramos, 28,000
Andrew Chen, 16,000
Chris Gordon, 34,000
Max Silver, 43,000
Chance Cornuth, 17,500
Sebastian Pauli, 36,000
Brett Angell, 19,200
Kevin MacPhee, 10,400
-- MC

A phone charger, a cup of tea and lots of chips. Life is good #pslive #goodlife #UKIPTDublin pic.twitter.com/5XoykLHMBX

— Chris Gordon (@CCG_85) February 11, 2016

12:40pm: EPT champs trying to claim a UKIPT title
Level 4: Blinds 150-300 ante 25

There are a number of EPT champions in the Day 1B field all hoping to win another major PokerStars title. Sebastian Pauli is the latest of those to take his seat, the EPT11 London champion took his seat a short time ago, as did the man he beat heads-up to win the title. He denied Kevin MacPhee the EPT double.

Also in are Anton Wigg, Ognyan Dimov, Mickey Petersen and David Vamplew. There are a ton of plain old UKIPT winners knocking about too. Ludovic Geilich has just turned up he joins the like of Brett Angell, Thomas Finneran, Max Silver, Dan Stacey, Dean Hutchison and Fintan Gavin.

12:25pm: One in, one out
Level 3: Blinds 100-200 ante 25

Whilst there's a snaking line of people waiting to get into the tournament, for some the UKIPT Dublin dream is already over. It's been a short tournament for: Cristinel Sandu, Ahmed Al Barwani, Sacha Le Breton, Thomas O'Shea, Balazs Botond, Fayad Ghassan, Miguel Monton, Lee Wai Kiat, Thierry Morel, Antti Marttinen and EPT12 Malta champion Niall Farrell. --NW

Was forced to bust the UKIPT immediately in protest of the late bar opening. Stand with me brothers.

— Niall Farrell (@Firaldo87poker) February 11, 2016

12:15pm: Two rooms
Level 3: Blinds 100-200 ante 25

As mentioned below there's a queue of players waiting to get into this event. Such is the demand for seats today that play has spilled over into the area of the building reserved for cash games.

There are 10 tables in use there - and more are being opened - and the linkes of Phillip Baker, Thomas Butzhammer, Ian Simpson, Mickey Petersen and Paul Delaney can be found dotted around that room. -NW

12:10pm: What so you mean it started at 10am?
Level 3: Blinds 100-200, 25 ante

Around 668 players have now taken their seats including 46 alternates from a line that's snaking out the door. Anyone would think that poker tournaments normally start at midday. The total number is looking good to pass the 1,000-player mark, which is great for the prizepool.

There's some amount of talent in that alternate line as well. UKIPT champions Dan Stacey and Fintan Gavin are joined by: Matthias de Meulder, Jasper Wetemans, Scott Montgomery, Neil Strike, Andrea Dato and online legend Chris Moorman. -- MC

11:55am: You pay your money, you take your chance...
Level 3: Blinds 100-200, 25 ante

You hope you don't run kings into aces...

Get KK vs AA. Comes AQ high n I still lose the maximum. Oops

— Chance Kornuth (@ChancesCards) February 11, 2016

11:52am: Practice makes perfect for Ari Engel
Level 3: Blinds 100-200, 25 ante

The APPT Aussie Millions is one of poker's majors. It's the biggest tournament the southern hemisphere has to offer and it's a real feather in the cap for any player that's good, and lucky, enough to win it. The 2016 edition came to a conclusion fewer than two weeks ago and Ari Engel, who's playing today, walked away with the trophy and AU$1.6million.

Engel made his name in the poker world back in the days when online poker was freely available in the United States. The hours he put in and the results he achieved earned him cult status amongst online railbirds. He had a scattering of live results but nothing to write home about. When the online game was taken away from him, he didn't get down about it, he just applied himself to the live poker circuit in the same way he used to online.

Fast-forward almost five years and Engel has cashed a staggering 130 times since "Black Friday." A look through the timeline on his Hendon Mob page highlights just how hard he's worked - cash after cash - often just days apart in locations across the US (mostly) and the globe. Until the Aussie Millions result, his biggest cash was for $177,000. It just shows that hard work does pay off and can result in the greatest day of your poker career, something that Engel confirmed happened to him down under. -- MC

11:30am: Break time
Level 2: Blinds 75-150

Two levels are in the books and the players are now on a 20 minute break. --NW

11:15am: Side event focus: Two final tables for McDonald; wins for Vieira, Bendik and others
Level 2: Blinds 75-150

There was plenty of side event action yesterday with four events playing to a conclusion. The biggest of those was the €5,000 Hold'em event, which attracted a stellar field of 15 runners. It was won by Portugal's Joao Vieira, he collected € 36,370 and defeated Mike McDonald heads-up. The Canadian then hopped into the €1k NL Turbo event and proceeded to finish fifth! Steve O'Dwyer went three better than McDonald but was denied another EPT trophy by Jasper Wetemans. The Dutch pro pocketed €24,725 for defeating the 96 strong field.

The other hold'em event on the schedule yesterday was a 500 NL Hyper Turbo event, it attracted 50 entrants. The final three were all from Portugal, and it was won by David Abreu after he defeated Fernando Brito heads-up.

It wasn't all hold'em yesterday though as there was a €500 H.O.R.S.E event on the schedule for the mixed game gurus. It was a strong field of 21 players and Jan Bendik beat David Vamplew heads-up to win the title. The 50-year-old from Slovakia has now won six EPT events in six different countries.

11:14am: Aces and faces
Level 2: Blinds 75-150

As you would expect plenty more known faces have joined the party and they include: Kevin MacPhee (fresh in from the other side of the planet), Joey Lovelady, Anton Wigg, Anton Saout, Seth Webber and Ian Simpson.

Simpson had a few extra cups of coffee this morning hoping it would help him with the early start time, but he hasn't gotten off to the best of starts. Maybe the caffeine has made his calling hands a little twitchy.

He and Robert Beer were heads up to the river of a [qd][7s][jd][5d][9d] board and around 4,500 lay in the centre of the table. Simpson checked from under the gun and tank called when Beer bet 5,000. He was shown [ad][ac] for a flush and mucked his hand to dropped to 15,300. -- MC

11am: Keep 'em coming
Level 2: Blinds 75-150

Over 515 players have now taken their seats on this bumper Day 1b and the big names just keep on coming. Due to the bigger buy-in events on the schedule - there's a €25,000 event tomorrow for instance - there are some well known players here that you'd never normally see on this tour. Like Chance Kornuth and Andrew Chen. Regulars on the EPT yes, the UKIPT, not so much.

A player who battles against them on the EPT regularly, but is a UKIPT regular, is Max Silver. He's also a Dublin native but due to a tram strike he drove to the venue today. He had to park someway from the venue though and was delighted to learn that the first break was 20 minutes long, rather than 15, as it gives him more time to move his car. If Silver has a Day 1 anything like he did last time the tour was in town, he'll likely be the chip leader.

He ran up a stack of 311,700 in Season 4, slightly more than Vladimir Velikov (301,500) managed yesterday, but in four fewer levels, unbelievable! Silver went on to finish runner-up to Kevin Killeen, almost adding to the UKIPT title he won here in 2010. Another UKIPT champion who's come close to a double is Brett Angell, he's also playing today as are:

Richard Hawes
Ben Winsor
Andrew Sweeney
David Clarkson
Neil Rawnsley
Jon Wong

10:40am: Earphones needed for Saxby?
Level 1: Blinds 50-100

Deborah Worley-Roberts and Kelly Saxby are great friends and hang out at many UKIPTs. The table they normally share is close to a bar but today, chips and cards have replaced the glasses and wine bottles as they have been drawn together.

Worley-Roberts is known for her quiet and shy demeanour at the table.....not! Her vocal ability is already being tested to its limits and Saxby, looked up at the blog and said in jest, "All day. All day!" -- MC

10:25am: Who's about? Part two
Level 1: Blinds 50-100

Forgive us, but we're about to do some more name dropping. Those spotted in t'other half of the room include:

Jamie Sykes
James Akenhead
Tom Hall
David Hills
Nick Newport
Andrew Hulme
Gareth Chantler
Keith Johnson
Mike Hill
Ari Engel
Alex Goulder

10:15am: Who's about? Part one
The tournament is growing minute by minute and smoke must be coming off the ticket machines at registration desk. The day has swelled to almost 500 entries players at the time of publishing.

Confirmed sightings in one half of the tournament room: PokerStars' Filipe Ramos, Mickey Petersen and Jen Shahade; Dan Charlton, Dara O'Kearney (after he faked playing Day 1A), Chris Gordon, Dan Charlton, Fergal Nealon, Vojtech Ruzicka, Tim Reilly, Kerryjane Craigie and Balazs Botond. --MC

Me and most of my fellow players at #UKIPTDublin today, gl all! https://t.co/gtBI6nCqym

— Mickey Petersen (@mickeydp) February 11, 2016

10am: Cards are in the air!
Level 1: Blinds 50-100

Day 1B has gotten underway.

9:45am: Bumper Day 1B about to commence
Day 1A attracted 214 players yesterday and today promises to be a lot bigger. The first ever champion here, back in Season 1, was Max Silver, and he'll be in attendance today. He tried to come and play yesterday but getting out of one's own bed (Silver lives in Dublin) tends to be a lot harder than a strange hotel bed. Back in 2010 Silver had a day job working for Full Tilt Poker, but the €72,000 he won was partially behind his decision to go pro, and what a good decision that's been - the Brit has more than £2.3 million in winnings on his poker resume now! Will another Silver-type case be born in Dublin this week?

Team Online's Mickey Peterson has been spotted in the RDS over the last 24 hours and is expected to be in the field today. Social media had also been flooded with photos of players making - or trying - to make their way to Dublin. Many added holidays on to the PCA and a fair few have made/are making the long trip back from the Aussie Millions, including the champion Ari Engel.

Cards will be in the air at 10am.

Key UKIPT5 Dublin Facts:

- 25,000 starting stack
- Blinds starting at 50/100 for 250 big blinds
- Levels are 45 minutes on Day 1 and they'll be 12 of them. From Day 2 onwards levels increase to 60 minutes.
- Day 1B takes place today, the field will then combine for the first time on Friday. We'll reach the money during the 10 levels of play on Day 2 and then play down to a final table on Saturday. Sunday is a rest day, and then on Monday the final table will play out on the TV table on EPTLive with cards-up coverage and bring Season 5 of the UKIPT to a close. Cue mad celebrations and swigging of champagne from the trophy (possibly).
- Full UKIPT5 Dublin schedule here.
- It's not all about the poker here in Dublin. There are plenty of #StarsFun activities including Dodgeball Trampolining. Yes, you read that right Dodgeball Trampolining.

PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT5 Dublin: Marc Convey and Nick Wright. Photos by Mickey May. Follow the PokerStars Blog on Twitter: @PokerStarsBlog

* CLICK TO REFRESH FOR LATEST UPDATES
* Largest ever UKIPT event in Ireland, 1,002 runners in total
* Day 1B consists of twelve 45-minute levels
* Day 1B players: 222 of 788 remaining
* Late registration has closed

9:20pm: It's all over
Level 12: Blinds 1,000-2,000, 300 ante

The klaxon has sounded on Day 1B and that's all she wrote. A wrap of the day's play is on the way. --NW

9:10pm: Threeis the magic number
Level 12: Blinds 1,000-2,000, 300 ante

Three more hands to go before play is done for the day. --NW

9pm: More schillings for Stefan Schillhabel
Level 12: Blinds 1,000-2,000, 300 ante

Stefan Schillhabel has soared up to 355,000 after he eliminated Jaroslav Miklik
in a cold battle of the blinds.

The latter raised from the small blind and called when the former three-bet him. The flop fell [kd][ad][tc] and Miklik check-called 6,700. The turn was the [kc] and Miklik check-raised all in for around 50,000 after Schillhabel had fired another 18,500. Snap call.

Schillhabel: [ah][as] for a full house
Miklik: [ks][9h] for turned trips.

The board completed with the [8s] and Miklik went off into the night. -- MC

8:48pm: Big names falling late
Level 12: Blinds 1,000-2,000, 300 ante

No Day 2 for: Corey Gill, David Vamplew, Alex Lindop, Tom Hall, Dominik Panka, Mick Graydon, Jasper Wetemans, George McKeever, Gavin O'Rourke, Thomas Dunwoodie, Neil Rawnsley, Anton Wigg, Ondrej Vinklarek, Jan Bendik, Otto Richard, Yorane Kerignard, and Diego Gomez. -- MC

8:30pm: Edward avoids the Tomb; Ferrero has monster stack
Level 11: Blinds 800-1,600, 200 ante

The old aces versus kings set up is never a nice way, especially once you've got a start in a tournament, to lose most of your stack.

Tom Kitt opened to 3,000 before Casey Kastle three-bet to 9,000. Padraic Cusack was in the small blind and put in a four-bet to 19,500 before Edward Tomb quickly five-bet all in for 71,200. Kitt and Castle folded but Cusack snap called.

Tomb: [ah][as]
Cusack: [kc][kh]

The board ran a blank [5d][qd][9d][3h][8c].

Also sat at this Olivier Ferrero who has amassed 421,000! Yep, you read that right. Apparently he's been hitting set over sets for fun. -- MC

8:20pm: Two out
Level 11: Blinds 800-1,600, 200 ante

Two short stacks tried to get rich, but died trying.

First to chance his arm was Franck Lini. The Frenchman was heads-up to a [Tc][Kh][Qs] flop against John Bagnal. He bet 7,000 and Bagnal smooth called.

On the [8d] turn Lini moved all-in for 26,200 and after getting a count of the shove, Bagnal called.

Lini: [Ac][Kd]
Bagnal: [Qd][Th]

Bagnal asked for a deuce and he got his wish on the [2s] river. -

A few minutes later Cormac O'Higgins was at risk for his last 17,000 with [Ac][8d] and in front of Cornelis Van Gent's [Kc][Js].

The [Qh][Ts][Ad] flop soon reversed the order of things though and neither the [2d] turn or [6d] river could save O'Higgins. -NW

8:10pm: You want money? We got money
Level 11: Blinds 800-1,600, 200 ante

Unfortunately the money we have won't go around everyone, so we're going to choose our favourite 151 players and rank them in order. Okay, we're not allowed to do that, this money (not ours either) had to be earned by the best of you. Prize pool information is in!

The 1002 entries helped create a prize pool of €971,940, with the top 151 getting paid. A min cash will earn you €1,710 and if you make Monday's final eight, then that figure will have jumped to €16,840. The winner? He or she will earn a tidy €176,900. -- MC

7:50pm: Notable stacks
Level 11: Blinds 800-1,600, 200 ante

You may have read about the following players in a tournament or two before:

Padraig O'Neill, 186,000
Dean Hutchison, 128,000
Thomas Finneran, 122,000
Chris Gordon, 101,000
Darah Davey, 89,000
Jeff Madsen, 86,000
Jamie Sykes, 80,000
Vojtech Ruzicka, 77,000
Tom Kitt, 74,000
Dara O'Kearney, 70,000
Sebastian Pauli, 70,000
Filipe Ramos (below), 70,000

Andrew Chen, 69,000
Alex Goulder, 60,000
Casey Kastle, 49,000
Mickey Petersen, 49,000
Gareth Chantler, 47,800
Charlie Carrel, 43,000
Ness Reilly, 42,000
Diego Gomez, 42,000
Jason Tomkins, 42,000
Surinder Sunar, 42,000
Dan Stacey, 37,000
Kenny Hallaert, 37,000
Martin Stazko, 36,000
Anton Wigg, 36,000
Tom Hall, 29,000
David Vamplew, 27,000
Ben Heath, 8,600

-- MC

7:25pm: Gone but not forgotten
Level 10: Blinds 600-1,200, 200 ante

It's so long and farewell to lots of big name players: Seth Webber, Paul Delaney, Tamer Kamel, Thiago Nishijima, Deborah Worley-Roberts, Diogo Veiga, Fergal Nealon, Max Silver, Conor Beresford, Asif Warris, Luciano Manolea, Tomasz Raniszewski, Jamie O'Connor, Tobias Peters, Ludovic Geilich, Eugene Katchalov, Daniel Charlton, Thomas Butzhammer and Kyle Frey.

We suspect many of them will be back for the UKIPT High Roller tomorrow. --NW

7:10pm: Akenhead misses, somehow
Level 10: Blinds 600-1,200, 200 ante

Poor Alexandre Rivero, he got his stack of 12,600 in against James Akenhead in a race situation, but the board kept on getting increasingly worse for the Brazilian.

He'd shoved with [2s][2h] and Akenhead - who had about 170,000 at this point - isolated from the small blind with [Ac][8h].

The [9c][4c][Kc] flop gave Akenhead flush outs, the [9h] turn opened up the possibility of the counterfeit knock out but the [5d] river was one of Rivero's clean cards and he doubled up. --NW

James Akenhead, 176,000
Alexandre Rivero, 28,200

7pm: Three more levels to go
Level 10: Blinds 600-1,200, 200 ante

Nine down, three to go. The remaining players have all advanced to level 10. --NW

5:46pm: Chip leaders at the dinner break
Level 9: Blinds 500-1,000 ante 100

As the players head to dinner these players below are the chip leaders. "I've been getting very good cards and very good situations," said Adam Owen when we asked how he'd accumulated his 175,500. Owen, who's better known for his mixed games prowess, was all smiles as he told us that.

Alfred Karlsson, 230,000
Adam Owen, 175,500
Parham Ahoor, 165,000
Padraic Cusack, 149,000
Peter Murphy, 135,000

The 380 remaining players are now on a 75 minute dinner break. --NW

5:44pm: Eugene catches a double
Level 9: Blinds 500-1,000, 100 ante

Team PokerStars Pro Eugene Katchalov was very short but now finds himself just short.

The action folded around to Katchalov on the button and he moved all in for 3,600. David Vida was in the big blind and called with [9c][2d]. Katchalov opened [jc][9s] and survived a [5c][5d][5s][6c][ac]. -- MC

5:35pm: Firm triangle
Level 9: Blinds 500-1,000, 100 ante

Poker's Firm members Daragh Davey, Dara O'Kearney and Padraig O'Neill (still a member?) are sat in a triangle formation after the latter was moved to the right of the former. Apparently triangles are the most stable of shapes, too!

O'Kearney's sat right behind them and won a pot after getting Matti Salminenna to fold on the river.

"Doke" raised to 2,000 from middle position and was called by Salminenna in the next seat, along with the big blind. The flop fanned [6h][8s][kh] and Doke's 3,500 c-bet was only called by Salminenna. Both checked the [2s] before a 6,000 bet on the [6d] river got the job done. -- MC

Dara O'Kearney, 72,000
Darah Davey, 101,000
O'Neill, 57,000

5:20pm: More records in the bag than your average DJ
Level 9: Blinds 500-1,000, 100 ante

Smash! Another record has fallen as we can confirm this is the biggest ever UKIPT Main Event on Irish soil. A total of 788 players played today and added to the 214 from yesterday this event has just squeaked into the four-figure club. So doing the math that makes 1,002 runners in total.

We don't have the prize pool information just yet but will post it within the coverage as soon as we receive it. --NW

5:10pm: If you've got an idea we'd like to hear from you
Level 9: Blinds 500-1,000, 100 ante

Here are PokerStars we're always open to hearing your ideas for new products/features that we can implement on the site. With that in mind we've set up an ideas booth manned by PokerStars Innovation Representative Christin Maschmann.

She'll be at the welcome desk at the RDS between 5.30pm and 7.30pm today and then again on Tuesday. So drop by and say hi. --NW

5pm: All in one room
Level 8: Blinds 400-800, 100 ante

We're down to 550 players now and that means all the players who are still in are now playing in the main room. Plenty of big names have fallen by the wayside over the last couple of levels. They include: Andrew Sweeney, Per Linde, Jeremy Nock, Jimmy Kebe, Timothy Chung, Jonas Lauck, David Abreu, Pablo Gordillo, Andrew Hulme, Jonathon Prested, Fintan Gavin, Felix Stephensen, Steven Warburton, Carl Harris, Matthias De Meulder, Anton Bertilsson, Ben Jenkins, Kevin MacPhee and Kelly Saxby. -NW

4:55pm: Chantler played aces like a boss
Level 8: Blinds 400-800, 100 ante
Gareth Chantler needed something to happen with his micro stack. He did and it enabled him to more than triple up.

Jeremy Mortimore opened to 1,800 from under the gun before Chantler moved all in for 2,400 from the hijack. UKIPT Cork champion Thomas Finneran was one more seat long and sat behind a 135,000 stack - he took his time and called as did Mortimore.

The board ran out [ts][7h][5h][3d][6s] with both opponents checking all the way. Mortimore's [ac][js] and Finneran's [qc][jh] were no match for Chantler's [as][ah].

"Nice hand," said Mortimore.

"I didn't know how to play it," said a very deadpan Chantler and it caused a ripple of laughter around the table. -- MC

4:40pm: You know you're in Ireland when

Guy at table wants to order tea, asks waiter how big are the cups. "Big enough" #UKIPTDublin #WelcometoIreland

— Dara O'Kearney (@daraokearney) February 11, 2016

4:25pm: Sisters trying to do it by themselves
Level 8: Blinds 400-800, 100 ante

Kerryjane Craigie runs a very tight ship, as Head of Poker at Hippodrome Casino and it seems she runs an even tighter one here at the RDS in Dublin.

She ran into our photographer and recounted an interesting situation she found herself in when in the ladies' toilet on break.

She was standing in there when four guys walked into the wrong bathroom. When she told them to get out, the reply she was given was, "We're French!"

This obviously didn't cut the mustard with Craigie so she protested and they added, "Have you never been in a men's bathroom?"

"NO!!" ended that conversation. -- MC

Want to start your own EPT campaign? Sign up for PokerStars and start your journey. Click here to get an account.

PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT5 Dublin: Marc Convey and Nick Wright. Photos by Mickey May. Follow the PokerStars Blog on Twitter: @PokerStarsBlog

We love breaking records on the UKIPT and we smashed two of them out of the park today. A massive 788 players turned up to play Day 1B of this event, eclipsing the previous single day attendance record for a UKIPT Main Event of 736 (set at UKIPT4 London 2).

Add them to the 214 who put their faces above the parapet on Day 1A and it meant the total number of runners in this huge UKIPT Main Event was 1,002, some 142 more than pitched up at UKIPT4 Galway, our previous best on Irish soil.

All told those 1,002 players created a prize pool totalling € 971,940. Over the next four days that'll be split 151 ways with the winner collect €176,900. You can see the full payout structure here.

There was actually a third record broken today, but we didn't break it, Stefan Schillhabel
did. His gargantuan end of day stack of 352,000 is a UKIPT Day 1 record, just eclipsing the 351,200 tht Neil Van Der Merwe bagged up in Bristol earlier this year. The 28-year-old German, who finished fourth in the EPT11 Malta Main Event, hails from Dusseldorf and started playing poker in 2006 with friends and is still a recreational player. He is currently studying for a Masters in sociology and also has a part-time job in sales.

Other players who turned 25,000 into substantially more today include:

Thomas Boivin, 342,400
Olivier Ferrero, 315,500
Adam Owen, 252,900
Adam Milewski, 232,900
Thomas Finneran, 216,000
James Akenhead, 182,500
Padraig O'Neill, 181,700

If you searched hard enough in the huge Day 1B field you'd have found half a dozen players sporting various versions of the famous PokerStars Red Spade.

Representing Team Pro were ElkY and Eugene Katchalov. Neither will be back for Day 2 though. The Frenchman ran kings into aces to bust #sosick.

Team Pro Online's sole representative proved he can cut it in the live arena too. That should come as no surprise given his name's Mickey Petersen. EPT champion Mickey Petersen. The Danish online tournament beast looked like he was going to reach Day 2 but busted on the final hand of the night.

Still going strong though is Felipe Ramos. It was easy to miss people in this hectic day, the Friend of PokerStars flew under the radar but flew he did as he'd turned his 25,000 starting stack into 78,200 by the time play ended.

We saw a new type of patch on the tour today, one that read, 'PokerStars Live at The Hippodrome Casino Team Pro'. The Hippodrome Casino in London's West End is PokerStars home in the UK and they recently sponsored two players to reprensent them at poker tournaments.

Both are tour regulars but it was a case of contrasting fortunes for the pair as Chris Gordon navigated the choppy UKIPT waters to finish on 88,700, whilst Kelly Saxby, who had a deep run at UKIPT Bristol earlier in the season, busted during level eight.

With so many well known players in the field today - there were 10 EPT champions just for starters - it's no surprise that plenty of them will be back for Day 2. Among the sharks hungry for UKIPT cash on Day 2 will be:

Charlie Carrel, 157,200
Andrew Chen, 149,900
Jeff Madsen, 138,900
Nick Newport, 125,400
Patrick Leonard, 83,000
Jamie Sykes, 76,400
Dara Davey, 71,200
Dara O'Kearney, 57,000
Surinder Sunar, 53,000
Gareth Chantler, 44,700
Keith Johnson, 24,600

Of course for some their tournaments went the other way. EPT11 Malta champion Niall Farrell was pretty vocal about the early 10am start time not being to his liking (not the only dissenter to be fair) and he was even more vocal about the bar not opening until 3pm. He busted out shortly after midday and tweeted - in jest - the reason for his quick exit.

Was forced to bust the UKIPT immediately in protest of the late bar opening. Stand with me brothers.

— Niall Farrell (@Firaldo87poker) February 11, 2016

He wasn't the only EPT champion who found the UKIPT a tougher nut to crack. Sebastian Pauli, Kevin MacPhee, Jannick Wrang, Ognyan Dimov, Dominik Panka, David Vamplew and Anton Wigg all busted out.

You could also set fire to the tournament slips of Chris Moorman, Ben Heath, Chance Kornuth, Max Silver, Matthias De Meulder, Jude Ainsworth and Fergal Nealon. As the day progressed, they did not.

Around 222 players made it through the day, add them to the 52 who advanced from Day 1A and somewhere in the region of 275 players will be back to play Day 2 from noon tomorrow. The march to the money begins in earnest then. We'll be back as we burst the bubble and move towards the final table during 10 one-hour levels.

Join us then, you can catch up on all today's action via the links below, and overnight chip counts and the seat draw will be posted shortly. Keep an eye on the widget to the right (or at the bottom if you're on mobile) and the @PokerStarsBlog and @UKIPT accounts for that information.

Until tomorrow good night from Dublin.

Levels 1-7
Levels 8-12

All photos are copyright of Mickey May

* This in an archive on level 13-18 updates of the UKIPT Main Event, live updates are here.
* CLICK HERE FOR LATEST CHIP COUNTS
* LIVE UPDATES of the €25,000 High Roller can be found here.
* Day 2 of the UKIPT Main Event - we're in the money!
* Top 151 players get paid, payouts can be viewed here

6:52: Dinner break
The players are on a 75-minute dinner break.

6:48pm :Doke's gone broke
Dara O'Kearney had the chance of tripling up, but it wasn't meant to be, and he left in 75th place, earning €2,220.

He moved all in for 105,000 from early/mid position and was called by both blinds, Sadan Turker and Kevin Pascal Barden. The [8s][as][5h] was checked before Turker check-folded to a 125,000 bet from Barden on the [js] turn.

O'Kearney: [kc][jc] for second pair
Barden: [ad][jd] for two pair.

The river was the [7h] and O'Kearney went off to collect his tenth cash. -- MC

strong>6:40pm: 25K to play
Level 18 - Blinds 4,000-8,000 (1,000 ante)

This isn't the only tournament in town, the €25,000 High Roller started today and has attracted the usual slew of world class players like Jason Mercier, Mike McDonald and Steve O'Dwyer. Live updates of that event can be feasted on here.

6:35pm: Big stacks
Level 18 - Blinds 4,000-8,000 (1,000 ante)

As we approach the dinner break the average stack is a shade under 310,000. The players below have more than that though, they all have at least half a million.

6:30pm: Sixes give Clarkson a 500K stack
Level 18 - Blinds 4,000-8,000 (1,000 ante)

It's not often you get it in post-flop with a pair of sixes in a huge pot and find yourself ahead, but that's what just happened to David Clarkson.

He's had an up and down day but it's just gone up again as he eliminated Jose Lopez Tapia in a large pot. I missed the pre-flop action but Tapia bet the [2c][5c][6h] flop, Clarkson raised to 55,000, Tapia moved all in for an effective 200,000 or so and Clarkson snap called.

Clarkson: [7c][6c]
Tapia: [5s][4s]

Neither the [Th] turn of the [Ac] river improved Tapia's hand and Clarkson just had him covered. -NW

David Clarkson, 500,000

6:25pm: Jack the lad Poulengeris
Antonis Poulengeris, who chopped the Sunday Million in 20015, has managed to stay alive by finding a way to wriggle out of a dominating situation.

He three-bet all in for 63,000 from the hijack after Krzysztof Gluszko had opened to 18,000 rom under the gun. The Polish player snap called when the action was back on him.

Gluszko: [ac][kh]
Poulengeris: [kc][jc]

Poulengeris asked for clubs but had to settle for a jack as the board ran [js][7d][8h][2s][9s]. -- MC

6:20pm: Field talent thins as 81 remain
The remaining 81 players will be happy to see the back of Jeff Madsen, Charlie Carrel and Dermot Blain, who all recently departed. --MC

6:08pm: Chen gets slightly more than a double up
Level 18 - Blinds 4,000-8,000 (1,000 ante)

Andrew Chen is a man who gets a lot but get its quietly. He needed to get some here in the Main Event and he did. You wouldn't know about it though so we'll tell you.

There was a preflop three way all in between Chen, Michael Mathieu and Jeffrey Brouwer. Mathieu was down to only an ante, Chen had 58,000 and Brouwer dropped to 305,000 after he lost the hand.

Mathieu: [9][6]
Brouwer: [as][6h]
Chen: [7s][7h]

The board ran [ks][4h][2h][jd][3c] to see the sevens hold up. -- MC

6pm: Starter for ten
Level 18 - Blinds 4,000-8,000 (1,000 ante)

Congratulations to Dara O'Kearney on his tenth UKIPT Main Event cash. Hat tip to his sidekick David Lappin who tweeted this fact a short time ago. --NW

5:55pm: Big names, short stacks
Level 17 - Blinds 3,000-6,000 (1,000 ante)

There are lots of big names in the field, but a fair few of them are short on chips at the moment:

Padraig O'Neil, 170,000.
Dermot Blain, 165,000
Dara O'Kearney, 135,000
Patrick Leonard, 115,000
Charlie Carrel, 75,000
Andrew Chen, 65,000
Chris Gordon, 65,000

A few though are prospering, Adam Owen has 550,000, Brett Angell is up to 340,000 and Ben Burnhill, is on 270,000. -- NW

5:50pm: Hutchison gets lucky to keep double dream alive
"I was due to be fair!" commented Dean Hutchison to a tablemate after he came from a dominated position to double up.

He got his last 67,000 in with [as][th] and had a willing customer in the shape of Mathieu Kuhne and his [ad][kc]. The board ran a Scottish flavoured [6h][9h][tc][5h][9d]. Kuhne dropped to 180,000.

Hutchison said he had been struggling since he lost with ace-queen to king-ten for a 200k pot about an hour ago. -- MC

5:45pm: Carter gets 'em
Level 17 - Blinds 3,000-6,000 (1,000 ante)

Double knockout alert!

From the cutoff Jasper Lucas opened to 15,000, Dan Carter smooth called and Matan Elgazar then moved all in for 30,000 from the small blind. Back on Lucas he moved all in for 190,000 and Carter, who was the covering stack, snap called.

Elgazar: [Ad][7d]
Lucas: [Ac][3s]
Carter: [As][Kh]

The [Qs][9h][9s][4c][6s] board kept the dominating ace in front and eliminated two players. -NW

Dan Carter, 450,000

5:20pm: Two more dreams are crushed
Level 17 - Blinds 3,000-6,000 (1,000 ante)

Two more exits to tell you about now:

First to go was Anthony Galloway, he got the last of his chips in with [Kc][Qs] but was dominated by the [Ah][Kd] of Antonis Poulengeris.

Peter Johnson meanwhile had his big slick outdrawn by the [Ac][Jc] of Sadan Turker when the latter turned a flush. - NW

Sadan Turker, 420,000
Antonis Poulengeris, 200,000

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5:15pm: Gora flushes Clarkson
Level 17 - Blinds 3,000-6,000 (1,000 ante)

Jakub Gora moved all-in from early position for 57,000 and David Clarkson made the call.

Gora: [As][Qs]
David Clarkson: [Ac][Qd]

It looked like a chop pot but the [Ks][Kc][9s][Ts][9h] board meant Gora doubled up. -NW

Jakub Gora, 125,500

5:05pm: Bebawi flushed away
Level 17 - Blinds 3,000-6,000 (1,000 ante)
Marc Bebawi found kings, got his chips in good, but they weren't good enough by the river.

He raised to 12,000 from the hijack and was called by the button before Reda Benhaddou squeezed all in for around 140,000. Bebawi had 127,000 and quickly called all in which prompted the button to fold.

Bebawi: [ks][kh]
Benhaddou: [ac][jc]

The board ran [8c][tc][3s][js][qc] to make a flush. -- MC

4:50pm: Top ten stacks

4:45pm: Play resumes
Level 17 - Blinds 3,000-6,000 (1,000 ante)
Two more levels before dinner break.

4:25pm: Break time
Level 16 - Blinds 2,500-5,000 (500 ante)
The players are taking 20 minutes to call home and tell the good news. --MC

4:20pm: Harraghy can't avoid a diamond and busts to Kastle
Level 16 - Blinds 2,500-5,000 (500 ante)

Gerard Harraghy gave a look we've all seen in a millions times in poker tournaments, the one where you know you're just about to get sucked out on.

Harraghy's nemesis was Casey Kastle, who moved up to 525,000 chips. A bunch of chips went in on the flop and the rest went in on the turn with a board reading [8h][5d][kh][jd].

Harraghy opened [ac][ah] and saw that Kastle had [kd][2d] for top pair and flush draw. The river was the [td] to make Kastle's flush. -- MC

4:05pm: Make mine a double?
Level 16 - Blinds 2,500-5,000 (500 ante)

Four UKIPT champions have made the money here in Dublin, so there's a chance of a double UKIPT winner. Trying their best to make that slim dream a reality are: Kevin Killeen, Thomas Finneran, Dean Hutchison and Brett Angell. -NW

Thomas Finneran, 350,000
Kevin Killeen, 250,000
Brett Angell, 230,000
Dean Hutchison, 160,000

4pm: Did Leonard lie?
Level 16 - Blinds 2,500-5,000 (500 ante)

"I've only looked at one, the good one," said Patrick Leonard a few seconds after he'd moved all in for 55,000. Dimitri Pembroke was in the tank and the Irishman eventually decided to move all in for about 75,000. Everyone else folded and it was time for a showdown:

Leonard: [Ad][Kh]
Pembroke: [Ac][Qs]

The [5h][6c][8c][Jh][6h] board kept Leonard in front and left Pembroke with around 20,000. -NW

Patrick Leonard, 122,500

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3:50pm: Show me the money
Level 16 - Blinds 2,500-5,000 (500 ante)

As per usual there were a steady stream of players heading to the payouts table in the minutes following the bubble bursting.

"Am I the first one out in the money?" asked Russell Wood. He wasn't, that was Regis Burlot. Phil Baker and Andrew Hawksby are also out, both were short on chips on the bubble.

Niko Koop is another faller, his final 60,000 went in with [td][ts] and lost out to Stephane Gabarre's pocket queens. -NW

3:45pm: Gieles busting saves Ambraisse from bubbling
Idris Ambraisse and Pim Gieles both were eliminated on the same hand so shared the €1,710 on offer for 151st place. Ambraisse's exit hand was announced to the room first so had had a few minutes thinking he was the actual bubble boy. Gieles would soon come to the rescue though.

He had three-bet all in for 77,000 after Jelcides Monteiro had opened to 10,000. Call.

Ambraisse: [kc][qc]
Monteiro: [jh][js]

The board ran [2d][th][3c][2h][ad].

Over to the other table and it was similar action in terms of action. Gieles three-bet all in for 70,000 after Daniel Harwood had opened to 12,500. Call.

Gieles: [jc][jh]
Harwood: [kd][kh]

The board ran [3d][3c][7d][qh][9s].

Everyone will leave somewhat happy from here on in after securing a cash, watch them fly out of the door for a while! -- MC

3:30pm: Crilly bubbles as Ambraisse and Gieles split 151st place money
Level 15 - Blinds 2,000-4,000 (500 ante)

One of those situations occurred today where the player two off the money became the bubble after two players, from different tables, busted on the bubble.

A good ten minutes before the two simultaneous all ins, David Crilly had half his stack (8,000) in with the big blind. Alex Difelice raised to 8,000 from the button and Crilly felt he couldn't fold, so called.

Crilly: [kc][5s]
Difelice: [ac][kh]

The board ran [2s][ad][th][ah][5d] to make Difelice trips. -- MC

3:10pm: Just missing out on the money
Level 15 - Blinds 2,000-4,000 (500 ante)

Some of the players who've just missed out on the money include: Nick Galtos, Dominic Mahoney, Ramsey Arjam, Surinder Sunar, Chihao Tsang, Nick Newport, Knut Karnapp and Alban Juen. --NW

3pm: Heinz takes us to (1)57
Level 15 - Blinds 2,000-4,000 (500 ante)

Heinz Traut is doing his best to single handily take everyone into the money here in Dublin. He eliminated two players in quick succession and told the table that he wished it was a bounty tournament.

First he eliminated Marc Radgen who four-bet shoved with pocket tens only to run into Traut's aces.

Then Richard Brinley Codd moved all in for 7,000 with [As][3c], but Traut had him dominated with [Ac][Kc] and held up on the [6c][Qh][Qs][4d][7d] board. --NW

Heinz Traut, 390,000

2:57pm: Bubble oh so close
Level 15 - Blinds 2,000-4,000 (500 ante)

The tournament has almost reached a critical juncture - the bubble time. Tune back in soon to see who will be the last player to leave with nothing. For now, check out the chip count page where, as well as the leaders, a number of notable players have been updated. -- MC

2:45pm: Newport aids Joyce's quest
Level 15 - Blinds 2,000-4,000 (500 ante)

After busting, Nick Newport was kind enough to fill the blog in on the hand that saw him bust, sending Toby Joyce into the lead.

They got the chips in on the turn when the board [A][8][3][J]. Newport opened ace-jack but Joyce had him crushed with pocket threes. Newport said the pot was worth a massive 350,000. -- MC

2:25pm: Chip leaders
Level 15 - Blinds 2,000-4,000 (500 ante)

As level 15 gets under way these are the chip leaders of the UKIPT Dublin Main Event:

2:20pm: Will the bubble burst in this level?
Level 15 - Blinds 2,000-4,000 (500 ante)

The remaining 174 players are now back in their seats and level 15 has just started. With 151 players getting paid it's possible that the bubble will burst this level. --NW

2pm: Out before the first break
Level 14 - Blinds 1,500-3,000 (400 ante)

Day 2 but no cash for: Julien Martini, Scott Margereson, Iain Farrell, William Bennet, Milen Ivanov, Kalidou Sow, Fernando Brito, Ville Haavisto, Alan Smart, Bui Niclassen, Younas Yousaf, Domenico Vivolo, Paul Carr, Daniel Rohrbasser, Jerry Odeen, Kerryjane Craigie, Robert Murphy, Rui Milhomens, Rocco Palumbo, Felix Schlott, George Stoddart, Keith Christie, Ben Smith, Alexandre Rivero, Thiaho Crema De Macedo, Christoph Koehnen, Andrew Colleran, Frank Lillis, Matt Davenport, Daragh Davey, Bart Verbanck, Padraic Cusack and Felipe Boianovsky.

The remaining players are on a 20-minute break. -- MC

1:42pm: Gordon quarter of the way to a million
Level 14 - Blinds 1,500-3,000 (400 ante)

Chris Gordon cracked the aces of Mathieu Philbert to see his stack rise to around 250,000.

The action was multi-way to a [tc][qh][9d] flop but it was on the [2s] turn where Gordon and Philbert got their stacks in. The latter opened aces but was drawing dead to Gordon's flopped straight with [jd][8d]. -- MC

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1:30pm: Oh my god! Kevin killed him
Level 14 - Blinds 1,500-3,000 (400 ante)

Kevin Killeen is the defending UKIPT Dublin champion and he just eliminated William Bennet to climb back to 90,000.

Bennet shoved for around 36,000 from the hi-jack with [Ah][8h] and Killeen isolated all in from the button with [Ad][Td]. The [tc][5h][8d] gave both players a pair, but Killeen's was better. It stayed that way on the [Kc] turn and [Ts] river.
Killeen isn't the only UKIPT champion in the field today, Dean Hutchison and Brett Angell are seated at the same table, whilst Dan Stacey has just been eliminated. -NW

Kevin Killeen, 90,000
Dean Hutchison, 200,000
Brett Angell, 135,000

1:25pm: O'Neill bluff fail
Level 14 - Blinds 1,500-3,000 (400 ante)

Word of advice: be careful when trying to bluff an Estonian. Padraig O'Neill just found that out the hard way.

He was in the big blind and heads up against Ranno Sootla with a [kc][7h][9h] flop showing. Sootla was in second position and bet 8,500 when the Irishman checked to him. O'Neill called and both checked the [8c] turn to see the [as] river appear. O'Neill cut 30,000 from his stack and led with it, sending Sootla into the tank. He took a minute and then separated the calling chips from his stack, stared at his opponent for a while longer and let a smile spread across his face before he tossed the chips in with his [kd][qd], beating O'Neill's [qh][th]. -- MC

Ranno Sootla, 215,000
Padraig O'Neill, 137,000

1:02pm: Tumbling out of the tournament
Level 14 - Blinds 1,500-3,000 (400 ante)

Roughly 40 players exited during the opening hour of play. Sadly for: Stavros Avdoulos, Francesco Delfoco, Jason Tompkins, Georgios Mavroulias, Simon Persson, Robert Wirth, Felipe Ramos, Pascal Frei, Jacek Bozio, Jonathan Concepcion, Nesrine Kourdourli, Daragh Thomas, Vallo Maidla, Julien Rouxel, Manuel Zapf, Sven Matthias, Christopher Kruk, Benjamin Nicault, Robert Beer, Gareth Chantler, Ruben Tack, Philip Hardy, Jonathan Rees, Robert Sampson and John Campbell their tournament is over. --NW

12:55pm: Life of Reilly for Mark
Level 13 - Blinds 1,200-2,400 (300 ante)

There's a famous UK radio DJ called Mark Reilly, who's affectionately known by his nickname 'Lard'. The only thing fat about the Mark Reilly in this poker tournament is his chip stack, as he just eliminated Cesar Garcia to win a 110,000 chip pot.

It all went in pre-flop with Garcia holding [9s][9d] and Reilly [Qc][Qh]. A [5c][2h][Th][Ks][4d] board kept Reilly in front and sent Garcia to the rail. --NW

12:45pm: Doke and Gordon happy tweeters
Level 13 - Blinds 1,200-2,400 (300 ante)

Chris Gordon and Dara O'Kearney are happily social poker players so far today. -- MC

Good start for day2, up to 180k. #UKIPTDublin #pslive_hippo

— Chris Gordon (@CCG_85) February 12, 2016

Donked my way down to 40k but flipped back to 90k aq > Jj #UKIPTDublin

— Dara O'Kearney (@daraokearney) February 12, 2016

12:40pm: Sykes sent back into retirement
Level 13 - Blinds 1,200-2,400 (300 ante)

Former professional poker player and now poker industry folk, Jamie Sykes, has been eliminated.

He told the blog that he lost a 120,000-flip with jacks to ace-king and then got the last of his stack in with [jc][8c] and ran into queens. -- MC

12:30pm: Bozio of a start for Jacek
Level 13 - Blinds 1,200-2,400 (300 ante)

Jacek Bozio has had an up and down start that has seen him settle on 15,000, not an ideal resting place.

He three-bet all in for 36,300 with [qs][qd] after an opponent had open shoved for 32,100 with [ac][jd]. The Polish player let out a few expletives after a [4s][2h][3d][5s][8c] board ran out to give his opponent a straight.

The very next hand, Bozio called all in for 3,900 after an opponent had opened to 5,400. Robert Murphy was in the small blind and moved all in to successfully isolate.

Bozio: [qh][7s]
Murphy: [9d][9s]

The first card out was a queen and Bozio seemed happy enough with his 15,000 after the bout of bad luck previously was evened out just a little. -- MC

12:15pm: Rush to the exits
Level 13 - Blinds 1,200-2,400 (300 ante)

A dozen players have been eliminated in the opening 15 minutes. Those to have busted include: Thomas Kitt, Andrew Robson, Christian Hanusse, Roberto Carrera, Benjamin Rivera, David Wilkes, Andreas Wuerger, Hak-Hyun Lee, Keith Johnson, Ciaran Heaney, Ankit Ahuja and Wayne O'Donnell.

On his way out the room O'Donnell stopped by the table of a friend and told him his tale of woe. "I had fives against ace-king and he made a flush." --NW

12:10pm: The start time doesn't matter players will still be late
Level 13 - Blinds 1,200-2,400 (300 ante)

There's been a lot of grumbling this week over the 10am start time, that's late in the normal world but early in the poker world.

If today has proven anything though whatever the start time is players will always show up late. There were plenty of empty chairs at the start of play and not just from the big stacks who could absorb the hits. We won't name and shame but we saw an empty seat for a player with a sub 55,000 stack as well as some with a 130,000+ stack. --NW

12:02pm: Shuffle up and deal!
Level 13 - Blinds 1,200-2,400 (300 ante)

Cards are in the are for day 2.

11:45am: Get ready for moving day
Level 13 - Blinds 1,200-2,400 (300 ante)

Day 2 on the UKIPT is often referred to as moving day and the reason is simple. By the time the day ends we'll have lost around 90% of the players who started the day. We've got 273 players returning today and we guesstimate that by the time level 22 is done, at around 00.15 GMT they'll be somewhere around 30-35 players left in their seats. If that is the case then the average stack will be 800,000 and the chip leader will have about 2,000,000.

So that makes the 352,000 that Stefan Schillhabel has seem quite paltry in comparison, but he's got the most of the players who advanced from Day 1. There's a strong chasing pack though with the likes of: Vladimir Velikov (301,500), Adam Owen (252,900), Marc Foggin (246,900), Thomas Finneran (216,900), Dan Carter (186,600), James Akenhead (182,500), Padraig O'Neil (181,700), Charlie Carrel (157,200), Casey Kastle (140,500) and Jeff Madsen (138,900) lurking.

Whilst all of the EPT champions in the field, and most of the Red Spades, were eliminated on Day 1 Felipe Ramos (78,200) and Chris Gordon (88,700) are back today.

Cards are in the air at noon.

PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT5 Dublin: Marc Convey and Nick Wright. Photos by Mickey May. Follow the PokerStars Blog on Twitter: @PokerStarsBlog

* CLICK TO REFRESH FOR LATEST UPDATES
* Day 2 is over, Day 3 starts at noon: RECAP OF DAY 2 HERE
* OVERNIGHT CHIP COUNTS
* DAY 3 SEAT DRAW
* Players remaining: 24 of 1,002 (average stack is 1,044,000)
* Top 151 players get paid, payouts can be viewed here

12:25am: Adam Owen eliminates Casey Kastle on the final hand to claim the chip lead
Level 22 - Blinds 10,000-20,000 (3,000 ante)

The chip lead changed hands on the final hand, indeed the final card of the day and whilst it's good news for Adam Owen it was bad luck for Casey Kastle.

He raised pre-flop with pocket tens and Owen flat called with [Ad][9c]. On the [9d][2d][4c] flop Kastle check-raised all-in for 390,000 and Owen called. "I flatted pre-flop but still stacked off," said Owen after play had ended.

The [8h] turn changed nothing, but the [Ah] river gave Owen the pot and eliminated Kastle in 25th place. Owen climbs to 2,171,000, good for the overall chip lead.

A full wrap of the days play will be on the way shortly. -- NW

12:10am: Last six hands
Level 22 - Blinds 10,000-20,000 (3,000 ante)

The clock has been paused and they'll be six more hands before play ends. --NW

12am: Finneran felts Tsanev
Level 22 - Blinds 10,000-20,000 (3,000 ante)

Down to just 202,000, Nikolay Tsanev moved all-in from the small blind and, after getting a count, Thomas Finneran called from the big blind.

Tsanev: [Qs][Jd]
Finneran: [Ac][3d]

The [Kc][9c][4d][5s][Kd] board sent Tsanev out in 29th place. Other players who've recently been eliminated include: Simon Nash (30th), Kevin Barden (31st), Paul Romain (32nd), Andras Korodi(34th), Nathan Gallagher (35th) and Heinz Traut (36th). --NW

Thomas Finneran, 800,000.

11:50pm: Killeen's back-to-back bid ends in 33rd place
Level 22 - Blinds 10,000-20,000 (3,000 ante)

The back-to-back UKIPT Dublin dream is over for defending champion Kevin Killeen. Short on chips he shoved from the small blind with [Ts][9s] and Paul Michaelis put him at risk holding [7d][7s].

After the [3d][5c][As] flop Killeen sensed the jig was up and got up to leave. The [4s] turn and [7c] river couldn't save him and it means just one UKIPT champion - Thomas Finneran - remains in this tournament. --NW

Paul Michaelis, 1,400,000

11:40pm: Dufau's draw dents Schillhabel
Level 22 - Blinds 10,000-20,000 (3,000 ante)

A huge pot to tell you about now:

Jean Dufau opened to 52,000 from middle position, Stefan Schillhabel smooth called and Kevin Killeen - who had about 140,000 back considered his option from the big blind but he eventually folded.

On the [6c][Ac][Qh] flop all the chips went in with Dufau at risk for 530,000 total. He showed [Jc][Tc] for a gutshot straight draw + flush draw, whilst Schillhabel held [Ad][Qs] for top two pair. The [5s] was a brick but the [Kc] completed Dufau's flush and kept the Frenchman in the tournament. -- NW

Jean Dufau, 1,300,000
Stefan Schillhabel, 500,000

11:40pm: Romain remains in it
Level 22 - Blinds 10,000-20,000 (3,000 ante)

It folded to Vladimir Velikov in the small blind and he set Paul Romain all-in for the Brit's final 125,000. Romain peaked down at [Jh][Th] and called it off, but was behind to the [Ad][7d] of Velikov.

"It flops well," says Romain as he waited for his fate to be dealt. The [5c][3d][Js] backed up Romain's statement and his hand held up on the [7h] turn and [6d] river. --NW

Vladimir Velikov, 1,300,000
Paul Romain, 268,000

11:35pm: So sick for Traut
Level 22 - Blinds 10,000-20,000 (3,000 ante)

"So sick," shouted Heinz Traut up the stairs to the pressroom, a short while after he was eliminated in 36h place.

He was holding [9s][9d] and three-bet all in from the button after Stefan Schillhabel had opened from the cutoff. The latter called with [kc][js] and got there on a board that ran [7d][3d][ad][6h][jh]. -- MC

Stefan Schillhabel, 830,000
Heinz Traut, 0

11:20pm: Out
Level 21 - Blinds 8,000-16,000 (2,000 ante)

Sadly for the players below their UKIPT Main Event journey has come to an end. They did all win at least €3,110 for their efforts though. The dedicated payouts page can be found here.

11:15pm: Owen takes out two, reclaims chip lead
Level 21 - Blinds 8,000-16,000 (2,000 ante)

Adam Owen doesn't have to worry about straddling the million-mark (for a while at least anyway) after he eliminated two players in one hand to reclaim the chip lead. Thanks to floor man Mike for filling the blog in on the basics of the hand.

Owen, Bart Lybaert and Mathieu Kuhne took to a [2d][8d][4] flop where all three committed their stacks. Kuhne opened seven-eight off-suit, Lybaert showed pocket kings and Owen revealed a drawing [ad][4d]. The turn bricked but the river was the [5d] to make Owen the nut flush, to take his stack past 1.8million, leaving his two opponents on the rail. -- MC

11:05pm: McGrath and Monroe depart
Level 21 - Blinds 8,000-16,000 (2,000 ante)

Not a good few minutes for Irish poker players whose surname beings with the letter M. First Henry McGrath busted, he was all in for about 175,000 with pocket queens but lost out to James Akenhead's pocket sevens. The WSOP November Niner flopped one seven and turned another. Death by quads!

The on a [Qs][Ac][2d] flop Patrick Rooney bet 60,000 only for Kevin Monroe to check-raise all in for 330,000 in total. Rooney called with [As][Jh] and held against Monroe's [Ah][5h] on the [8h] turn and [6h] river. Rooney is now the chip leader. --NW

Patrick Rooney, 1,700,000
James Akenhead, 530,000

11pm: Ace on the river kills Ruzicka
Level 21 - Blinds 8,000-16,000 (2,000 ante)

Former EPT Deauville High Roller champion Vojtech Ruzicka winced a little when he saw a river card appear that ended his deep run.

He was down to his last 195,000 when he moved all in from under the gun. Benjamin Saada was in middle position and was the only caller.

Ruzicka: [td][tc]
Saada: [ac][kc]

The board ran [6h][3s][qd][6c][ah] to pair the Frenchman's ace on the river. He who rose to 1.25million.

Neil Van Der Merwe joined Ruzicka on the rail a short while later. -- MC

10:50pm: Bluffs and big shoves
Level 21 - Blinds 8,000-16,000 (2,000 ante)

Details have emerged about how Patrick Leonard busted before the break. A former tablemate of his says that he raised with king-queen and bet every street, including all in on the river. His opponent in the hand, David Pollock, hit a set though and took all the chips to soar past a million.

Another Brit, in the shape of Adam Owen, keeps straddling above and below the million mark. He made a fold with a big hand in this level rather than play out a huge pot where he was probably flipping at best, and dropped to 900,000.

Neil Van Der Merwe opened to 35,000 from the hijack before Leonard three-bet to 77,000 from the next seat. Mahmood Rasheed was in the big blind and four-bet all in for a substantial 556,000. Van Der Merwe took his time before folding and that left Owen with a decision.

"You look really happy and you haven't been giving much away today," he said to Rasheed.

"I have a really big hand here, will you show if I do?" Owen continued. Rasheed nodded and opened [ad][ks] when the Brit showed [th][td]. -- MC

10:35pm: Chip counts (Full)
Level 21 - Blinds 8,000-16,000 (2,000 ante)

Below are the chip counts of the 48 remaining players in the Main Event, Vladas Burneikis leads with a stack of 1,480,000. Two UKIPT champions remain in contention, both Irish, as Kevin Killeen and Thomas Finneran are still in.

10:12pm: Break time
Level 20 - Blinds 6,000-12,000 (1,000 ante)

The players are now on their final break of the day. --NW

10:10pm: Tombs toppled
Level 20 - Blinds 6,000-12,000 (1,000 ante)

Edward Tombs shoved all in for 161,000 with [Ks][Jh] and got a call from Iain Farrell who held [Ad][Kc]. A [7h][As][8c][9d][7s] board didn't help him and he was eliminated. --NW

10:05pm: Carter can't comeback
Level 20 - Blinds 6,000-12,000 (1,000 ante)

As reported below Dan Carter was down to just a handful of big blinds, what's more he desperately needed the toilet, but couldn't afford to miss a hand. Some might call that a leak (sorry). After folding his big blind he was down to around 50,000. Vojtech Ruzicka shoved all in for about 70,000 from late position with [Ad][5h], Carter looked down at [Ac][7c] and also moved all in.

He looked on as the [3c][6c][9s][6s][As] board meant it was a chopped pot. "Such a tease," he said.

On the next hand he moved all in from the button with [Ks][7s] and lost out to the big blinds [Ad][Th] to bust. -- NW

10pm: Clock called on Bolvin
Level 20 - Blinds 6,000-12,000 (2,000 ante)

Thomas Boivin opened from under-the-gun, Vladas Burneikis smooth called from middle position and the big blind tagged along too.

On the [6s][Ks][Jc] flop Bolvin bet 48,000 and Burneikis was the only caller. On the [8d] turn Bolvin bet again, this time 92,000 and again Burneikis smooth called. The [Ah] river was an interesting card and Bolvin checked it over to Burneikis who fired out 140,000.

Bolvin went into the tank and he stayed there for so long two players busted out on other tables whilst he tanked (more on those exits to come).

Eventually the clock was called and as time ticked down all Bolvin said was: "Don't show me," the clock hit zero and his hand was dead. Burneikis showed [Qs][Js] for a flush draw and pair that rivered broadway. - NW

Vladas Burneikis, 700,000
Thomas Bolvin, 270,000

9:45pm: A double over here, and a double over there
Level 20 - Blinds 6,000-12,000 (2,000 ante)
Benjamin Saada and Bart Lybaert were both recent beneficiaries of double ups, via Dan Carter and Quentin Dellis.

James Akenhead, Carter and Saada all took to a [7s][9s][ad] flop where the former bet 42,000 from the cutoff. Carter called on the button but Saada check-raised all in for 285,000 from the big blind. Akenhead folded but Carter called with [as][jd], behind to his opponent's [ah][7c]. The board ran out [6h][5d]. Carter dropped to 86,000.

Lybaert three-bet all in for 182,000 after Dellis had opened. Dellis snap called with [ks][kh] but couldn't stay ahead of Lybaert's [as][jh] on a [qs][3c][8d][ac][6h] board. -- MC

9:25pm: Act like you've been here before
Level 20 - Blinds 6,000-12,000 (2,000 ante)

As well as having a couple of UKIPT champions still in the mix there are a couple more who've been to the final table of a UKIPT but not managed to go all the way.

There are, we think, just two players who fit that description left in the field. There's Dan Carter (350,000), who final table Coventry way back in Season 1. He finished fourth there, collecting £12,700.

Whilst Jeffrey Brouwer (660,000) made his final table far more recently, finishing seventh, good for €20,100. -- NW

9:20pm: Stacked
Level 20 - Blinds 6,000-12,000 (2,000 ante)

Not so long ago 500,000 was a great stack, now you're nothing if you've not got a seven figure stack. The chip leaders at the start of level 20 were:

Jelcides Monteiro, 1,300,000
Reda Benhaddou, 1,100,000
Vladimir Velikov, 1,060,000
David Pollock, 1,050,000
Adam Owen, 1,000,000

9:15pm: Slow rolled?
Level 20 - Blinds 6,000-12,000 (2,000 ante)

No one is really every happy when they get eliminated from a poker tournament but Dario Cannistra was particularly upset because he thought that Jean Dufau had slowrolled him.

In the hand in question Cannistra shoved for around 145,000 from the small blind with [As][4c] and Defau called with [Tc][Td]. A [Qd][7h][Th][8d][5h] proving pretty decisive. -NW

Jean Dufau, 450,000

9:08pm: Owen doesn't pull the trigger on the river
Level 20 - Blinds 6,000-12,000 (2,000 ante)

Adam Owen may well have been the first player to pass the million-chip mark but he's dipped back below that after losing a sizable pot to Paul Michaelis.

Around 350,000 chips sat piled in the table's centre waiting to be claimed. The board read [2c][2h][qh][8c][5d] and Michaelis checked from the hijack. Owen was in the cutoff and took his time before he checked behind. Michaelis declared two pair and opened [6h][6s]. Owen said it was good and sent his cards to the muck. -- MC

Adam Owen, 890,000
Paul Michaelis, 670,000

9pm: Brouwer checks quads in three-way pot
Jeffrey Brouwer sneakily checked quads in a three-way pot, hoping James Akenhead would fire in position like he did on the turn. He didn't.

At that turn stage the board read [4c][kh][3s][ks] and Dan Carter (small blind) and Brouwer (middle position) checked to Akenhead on the button who fired 42,000 at the pot. Both opponents called to the [kd] river that was checked through.

Brouwer opened [kc][ts] and Carter said, "Can't beat that!" and folded along with Akenhead. -- MC

Jeffrey Brouwer, 660,000
Akenhead, 348,000
Dan Carter, 429,000

8:45pm: Back of the net!
Level 19, Blinds 5,000-10,000 (1,000)

If you're a football (or soccer) fan then there's been a few additions to the VIP Store today that are a bit better than your average half-time pie.

You can buy tickets to a few Premier League matches that should prove nail biters given the open race for this year's title. If Tottenham v Man United, Man City v Arsenal or Chelsea v Tottenham take your fancy then check this out. -- NW

8:38pm: Velikov close to a million as he busts Hutchison
Level 19, Blinds 5,000-10,000 (1,000)

Vladimir Velikov, who's had a big stack for most of the tournament, has risen up to 990,000 after he eliminated UKIPT4 Edinburgh champion Dean Hutchison.

The latter was down to just three big blinds, and in the big blind, when Velikov set him all in from the small blind. The hands, and board run out, actually turned out to be very interesting, even though no more action could take place.

Velikov: [8h][8c]
Hutchison: [ks][js]

The board ran [7s][as][ah][kc][8s].

Hutchison rivered the nut flush but the same card also filled up his Bulgarian opponent. -- MC

8:20pm: Canatore can't catch
Level 19, Blinds 5,000-10,000 (1,000)

"King-queen into ace-queen," was Giovanni Cantatore's succinct description of how he busted the UKIPT Main Event. To give it some context, the Italian had got it in on a queen high, two heart flop against Patrick Rooney's [ah][qc] and missed on the [Qs] turn and [6h] river.--NW

Patrick Rooney, 560,000

8:10pm: Four more levels
Level 19, Blinds 5,000-10,000 (1,000)
The final 70 players are back in their seats for level 19, and they will play four more levels for tonight. Play should end around around 12:25am. One player who won't be back is PokerStars Live at The Hippodrome Casino Team Pro Chris Gordon, who busted in 90th place. -- MC

@PSLive_Hippo busted in 90th. Got my last 6 bigs in a5 vs k3, ace in the window but still couldn't hold. #greatsupport #ukiptdublin

— Chris Gordon (@CCG_85) February 12, 2016

PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT5 Dublin: Marc Convey and Nick Wright. Photos by Mickey May. Follow the PokerStars Blog on Twitter: @PokerStarsBlog