Who needs sand, sunshine and sangria when you've got cards, chips and a chair? Not 409 poker players from around the world who all took part in the second of three starting flights of UKIPT Marbella.
A total of 39 countries were represented today and whilst the UK, Ireland and Spain accounted for 249 of their number there were players from as far afield as Algeria and Uruguay at the felt today. When the allotted dozen 45-minute levels had been played it was the karaoke king Kevin Monroe who claimed the chip lead.
The Irishman enjoyed a incredible day running up his starting stack of 25,000 to a bag busting 321,000 by the time the final whistle blew.
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Just like in the England v Wales game it was a close run contest right up until the end of play. Just pipped into second was Albert Sapiano who finished the day on 319,400. "I got lucky a couple of times," was his deadpan response to his day at the tables. A raft of other players increased their stack handsomely with David Greene (237,700), James Mitchell (224,600) and June Edwards (213,400) all well placed to make a deep run at the money.
Speaking of which, at this point we've usually got the prize pool information, total number of runners and the overnight seat draw to hand. But, for the first time on a UKIPT we're trialling something that's worked well on other PokerStars tours, a turbo Day 1C. It's a flight that's only open to anyone who busted Day 1A or Day 1B and won't wrap up until around 2.30am CET. One player who'll almost certainly play Day 1C is Team PokerStars SportsStars Fatima Moreira de Melo. She got as high as 49,000 at one point today but the blinds and antes began to eat away at her stack and she exited three quarters of the way through the day. Other familiar faces who may well be back for Day 1C include: Kuljinder Sidhu, Renee Xie, Chris Dowling, Mateusz Moolhuizen and David Clarkson. That talented quintet all tried and failed on the first attempt today. Whilst some of the big names faltered they'll be plenty of notables in the Day 2 seat draw tomorrow all looking to get themselves a Spanish Flag. The assorted talents of: Diego Gomez (150,200), Lam Trinh (122,300), Kjell Lindqvist (72,500) and Niko Koop (65,000) will return tomorrow. Also through is De Melo's best bud, Leo Margets. The two were seated at adjacent tables at the start of the day and that made for a jovial atmosphere in their part of the room. Margets will return tomorrow with a stack of 43,200 and work to do. You can catch up on all the Day 1B action here, Day 2 starts at noon tomorrow and that's when we'll pick up the action again. We'll bring you a brief overview of what happened during the turbo Day 1C as Day 2 kicks off. But for now, goodnight from Marbella.
As a result we can't bring you the Day 2 seat draw just yet, but keep an eye on the @UKIPT and @PokerStarsBlog twitter accounts for that information, which will be available before play starts tomorrow. You can see the chip counts of the 182 survivors from the opening two flights here.
PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT6 Marbella: Marc Convey and Nick Wright. Photos by Mickey May and Rene Velli. Follow the PokerStars Blog on Twitter: @PokerStarsBlog