We often refer to Day 2 of a UKIPT as moving day and the reasons for this can be summed up in one word - maths. Depending on how many levels you play on Day 1 around 45-55% of the field will advance to Day 2 whilst typically less than 10% advance from Day 2 to Day 3. Today 380 returned and just 37 made it through.
All the survivors have locked up a cash of at least £3,760 but whilst that's a decent return on their investment it's tomorrow when the big money will be won. The player looking most likely to take home the £182,000 first prize right now is David Clarkson, who ended the day on a massive 1,715,000. His biggest hand of the day came when he eliminated Rob Tinnion in a 1,600,000 chip pot. Clarkson flopped a flush with [Qs][Js], Tinnion had the [Ks] and a straight draw come the turn and the chips went in. "I closed my eyes and hoped," said Clarkson of the moment before the river blanked. The 26-year-old who describes himself as "pretty much a pro," plays live cash games and online tournaments. He's got form in the latter having won a TCOOP in January. He satellited into this event online but is on his second bullet.
He's not bad in the live arena either; Clarkson's two for two in UKIPT5 Main Events having finished 42nd in London. He had the chip lead in that one before going from hero to zero in just two hands to bust. "I'm good at getting the chip leads in these, but even better at punting them off," he joked at the end of the day. He'll be hoping that doesn't happen tomorrow, especially as his girlfriend Clara is travelling up to rail him.
He wasn't the only player to breach the 1,000,000 chip barrier; nine players bagged up seven figures and all of Richard Jones (1,465,000) Patrick Clarke (1,404,000), Marc Hunter (1,291,000) and Ben Vinson (1,114,000) will be more than pleased with their day's work. In particular Vinson's rise was most impressive given he started with just 24,300. Below is a full list of survivors - they'll all be back at noon to play down to a winner.
David Clarkson, United Kingdom, 1,715,000
Richard Jones, United Kingdom, 1,465,000
Patrick Clarke, Ireland, 1,404,000
Marc Hunter, United Kingdom, 1,291,000
Ben Vinson, United Kingdom, 1,114,000
Usman Siddique, United Kingdom, 1,113,000
Jimmy Cinquemani, United Kingdom, 1,100,000
Jeremy Betts, United Kingdom, PokerStars Qualifier, 1,040,000
Juan Benito, Spain, PokerStars Qualifier, 922,000
Raul Martinez, United Kingdom, PokerStars Qualifier, 828,000
Adam Bilcock, United Kingdom, PokerStars Qualifier, 828,000
Dara Davey, Ireland, PokerStars Player, 820,000
Remigiusz Wyrzykiewicz, Poland, 726,000
Adam Kossew, United Kingdom, 706,000
Nicolas Mclellan, United Kingdom, 700,000
Sergio Aido, Spain, 669,000
Kestutis Kristapaitis, Lithuania, 623,000
Krzysztof Jacyk, Poland, PokerStars Qualifier, 615,000
Sunil Pancholi, United Kingdom, 557,000
Prassanna Suryanarayanan, United Kingdom, 547,000
Algernon Buchanan, United Kingdom, 538,000
Soleiman Masud, United Kingdom, 524,000
Richard Blacklock, United Kingdom, 523,000
Sam Mitten-laurence, United Kingdom, PokerStars Qualifier, 495,000
Chris Gordon, United Kingdom, 466,000
Luke Perrott, United Kingdom, PokerStars Qualifier, 466,000
Trevor Pearson, United Kingdom, PokerStars Qualifier, 435,000
Kuljinder Sidhu, United Kingdom, 416,000
Daniel Merrilees, United Kingdom, PokerStars Qualifier, 400,000
Foyzul Hussein, United Kingdom, PokerStars Qualifier, 372,000
Morten Mortensen, Denmark, 369,000
Michiel Jonker, Netherlands, 367,000
Guy Taylor, United Kingdom, 352,000
Ben Longstaff, United Kingdom, 344,000
Zeljko Adzaga, Croatia, PokerStars Qualifier, 231,000
Andrew Hulme, United Kingdom, 210,000
Robert Moss, United Kingdom, 142,000
The prospect of another UKIPT double is on as Sergio Aido, who won UKIPT3 London, is still in. We also have the UKIPT4 leader board winner (Dara Davey), an Irish Open winner (Patrick Clarke), two players who've final tabled a UKIPT Main Event in this venue before (Vinson and Juan Benito), and three players who've final tabled an EPT (Morten Mortensen - 8th EPT7 Snowfest, Kuljinder Sidhu - 8th EPT10 London, and Remigiusz Wyrzykiewicz - 8th EPT11 Malta). In short, this field is still stacked.
When play got under way at a little past noon local time there were two members of Team PokerStars Pro left in and one paid up member of Team Blog still in the mix. Just 15 minutes later we were 0 for 3. Leo Margets went first and Jake Cody followed soon after when he missed a straight and flush draw after jamming into a made straight.
Getting it in good didn't seem to help either. European Media Person of the Year winner Marc Convey can often be found commentating on the EPT and blogging on this very tour, and had his exit hand played out on EPT Live there'd have been a classic race symbol lit large. His jacks couldn't hold against ace-king and that was that for 'The Conv'.
Their exits set the tone for the day as it appeared everyone had a meeting to be at or a bus to catch as the bust outs continued at a ferocious pass until the bubble was reached during level 16. There would be no protracted bubble, indeed hand for hand play wasn't required. Chuck Khuu was the last to leave empty handed when his three-bet shove with ace-jack went awry as Ben Longstaff called with queens and the ladies held.
From there the numbers continued to drop and plenty of talented players took a trip to the cash desk to pick up their winnings: Rory Brown (137th), Kevin Allen (129th), Charlie Combes (124th), Yucel Eminoglu (118th), Michael Graydon (114th), Ben Dobson (102nd), Leo McClean (92nd), Jason Tompkins (84th), Ludovic Geilich (78th), Paul Jackson (75th), Matas Cimbolas (68th), Robert Tinnion (60th), Neil Raine (54th), Dean Hutchison (47th) and Leon Louis (41st) all made the money but not Day 3. For a full list of payouts head here.
You can catch up on all today's exciting action by clicking here or here, we'll be back from noon to cover the business end of this huge £1,000,000 guaranteed event, but for now goodnight.
All photos are copyright of Mickey May