We ramped things up today at Dusk Till Dawn as the second of four starting days in the £1,000,000 Guaranteed Main Event attracted 128 runners, some two and a half times more than Day 1A on Sunday.
Those who elected to play today faced the same conditions as those who played Sunday of course and over 10 levels of play the field was reduced to just 48 as the rising blinds took their toll on this talented field. Amongst those who bagged chips no one could match Max Ladbrooke as he finished on 190,900. "I won a big flip with queens against ace-king," the 23 year-old politics student told the PokerStars Blog at the end of play, always nice to on the right side of that one. "I should be doing my dissertation," he added. However his tome on Animal Rights has been put on hold after he satellited into the Main Event for £200 in a live satellite last night. "I'm a terrible poker player, this is ten times bigger than the biggest event I've ever played," he stated matter of factly. He refreshing honesty continued when he said. "I'm definitely a fish on a heater."
The Keele University students total was not only more than anyone else mustered today but more than Day 1A chip leader Sunil Pancholi accrued, he bagged 170,800 on Sunday. Others today who also caught some heat and came close to catching him include: Simon Higgins (151,800), Iaron Lightbourne (144,000) and Leo McClean (119,200). McClean had a great end to the day as he won a 70,000 chip pot on the very last hand of the day, "I opened with queens and a guy decided to rip into me with ace-jack," he told the PokerStars Blog.
Team PokerStars Pro was represented by Jake Cody today, he shot out the blocks, climbing to 67,000 at one point but he lost a big pot to Simon Higgins in the penultimate level of the day to slip back to 14,000. He couldn't mount a comeback and busted in the last level of the day. Another Team Pro - Liv Boeree - was involved in a different tournament today, the £3,000 High Roller. Unfortunately she busted short of the money in that one, she didn't hop into the Main Event but plenty in the same boat as her did just that. At one point Max Silver, Ben Vinson, Jack Salter and Chris Brammer were sat in a row, a tough line-up for sure. But the Poker Gods care not for reputation and for once Silver had an off day on the felt and although Vinson, Salter and Brammer made it through none of them ran up a big stack.
Stacks of note, either by virtue of their size or the reputation of the player behind them, include:
Dave Maddock - 104,400
Robin Fisher - 99,400
Eirimas Livonas - 94,500
Lee Taylor - 93,900
Philippe Souki - 91,900
Simon Deadman - 80,100
Richard Blacklock - 76,400
Kuljinder Sidhu - 75,800
Daniel Charlton - 72,100
Richard Kellett - 71,300
Yucel Eminoglu - 63,300
Christopher Brammer - 59,000
Ben Jackson - 49,700
Rhys Jones - 48,000
Chris Sly - 46,700
Ben Vinson - 24,300
Jack Salter - 18,000
A combined list of Day 1 survivors can be seen here but you won't find the names of Keith Hawkins, Nick Hicks, Billy Chattaway, Keith Johnson, Ludovic Geilich, Jonathan Kalmar, Niall Farrell or Alex Goulder amongst them as they all fell by the wayside during today's play. They may of course be back tomorrow, the PokerStars Blog will definitely be here as we do it all again when Day 1C gets under way at noon. You can catch up with all today's action by clicking here or here, but for now so long, we'll see you tomorrow.
All photos are copyright of Mickey May