WSOP Europe Main Event No Limit Texas Holdem Update

by Bodog Poker | Sep 28 2009

The 2009 World Series of Poker Europe began over the weekend and just about every big name in poker has made the trip to London this year. Day 1a had more poker stars in attendance than any WSOPE has ever seen before, but they kept rolling into the doors of the Casino at Empire in London's Leicester Square into Day 1b as well. After the smoke cleared on Day 1a play there were lots of big names on the chip stack leaderboard, while many were sent to the rail and will get nothing for their hefty £10,000 investment. Payouts for this year’s event are impressive indeed, with the winner getting almost $1.3 million. The payouts for the top finishers break down like this:

1st = £801,603
2nd = £495,589
3rd = £360,887
4th = £267,267
5th = £200,367
6th = £150,267
7th = £114,228
8th = £87,074
9th = £66,533
10-12th = £51,536
13-15th = £40,481
16-18th = £31,198
19-27th = £25,918
28-36th = £21,142

Day 1a had 156 players enter the event, and by the end of it 79 were left standing to compete in Day 2. The biggest name among the Day 1a leaders is the legend himself, Doyle Brunson. He finished the day with 92,900 chips, good enough for 13th place on the leaderboard. Finishing the day with the chip lead was Brian Powell, who had 194,600 worth of chips to bag after play was complete. Close on his heels is Jason Mercier, who has managed to compile 189,725. Sami Kelopuro, Viktor Blom, and Jonathan Aguiar all have over 160K worth of chips going into Day 2.

Other notables still in the running are Mike Matusow, Phil Hellmuth, Erik Seidel, Bradon Cantu, Todd Brunson, and Andy Black. Day 1a notables hitting the rail were Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonious, Ben Grundy, Roland De Wolfe, Hoyt Corkins, Huck Seed, and Chris Moorman.

Day 1b had more entrants than Day 1a, with a total of 178 players signing up. That field included big poker names like Daniel Negreanu, Annette Obrestad, Gus Hansen, Barry Greenstein, Chris Ferguson, and David Williams trying their luck at making it to Day 2. Hansen got caught bluffing by Arnaud Mattern and was crippled down to 18K at last glance. Negreanu started the day poorly but managed to grow his chip stack with some stellar play. By the end of the day he was Twittering that he was playing his best poker in a long time. Obrestad had violent swings in her chip stack all day, as she often does playing her aggressive style of poker. She had around 50K the last time we looked in.

Bodog professional Williams ran into some bad luck on Day 1b while in a hand with Ilari Sahamies. Williams managed to get his chips in the middle with pocket kings against Sahamies’ pocket tens. Sahamies should have been eliminated but he sucked out a ten on the turn, crippling Williams down to a very short stack on a tough table.

Day 2 gets going at 5:30pm on Sept 28, and 12pm on subsequent days (Sept 29-Oct 1).

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