WSOP Europe / Dave Allan / 28 September 2009 / Leave a comment

Both Day 1a and 1b of the 2009 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event are now completed with a host of big names returning for Day 2 with huge stacks, some not so large and plenty of household names you would expect to be there having to watch from the rail after losing their 30,000 starting stack.

Day 1a saw 156 entrants part with £10,300 to play in the Main Event and by the time play had ended for the day only 79 of them had chips to count and bag up.

There is very little "dead-money" in a tournament like this and this was shown earlier on when a 'Table of Death' was seen housing the likes of Chris Moorman, Andy Black, Alex Kravchenko, David Pham and Erik Seidel! Never has the poker term "sick" been so true

Phil Hellmuth made his usual over-the-top entrance, when he arrived dressed as Caesar along with eleven muses, white horses and a carriage! The London public must have been wondering what the hell was going on whilst they were on their dinner breaks in Leicester Square!

One hand that really stands out from Day 1a is one involving Brandon Cantu and Markus Golser. Cantu raised preflop and Golser called, with both players seeing a flop of 6d6cTh. Cantu lead out and his opponent called, prompting the dealer to deal the 5s on the turn. Cantu, famed for his extremely loose starting hand requirements, now checked, Golser bet 3,000 and Cantu raised to 10,000. Not to be pushed around, Golser min-raised to 17,100 hoping to end the hand but Cantu was not finished as he re-raised once again to 35,025. Golser decided he was beat and would like to preserve his remaining 11,000 chips and folded his hand, leaving Cantu to show Ad7h for an audacious bluff!

When time was called on proceedings for the day and the dust had settled, it was Brian Powell who was announced as the overnight chip leader, having taken his starting stack of 30,000 up to an impressive 194,600, closely followed by in-form Jason Mercier on 189,725. Some of the names unable to survive the day's play were Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius, Roland de Wolfe and Betfair's Peter Jepsen

Day 1b saw another host of stars prepare to do battle at the felt, all with an eye on the £800,000 first prize and the Corum WSOP bracelet.

People catching a glimpse of the TV Feature table would have been forgiven for thinking it was the final table as it was the home of Barry Greenstein, Daniel Negreanu, Sam Trickett, James Keys and Annette Obrestad. I for one will be looking forward to the TV highlights later in the year when we will get to see their hole cards.

Sorel Mizzi's table was not any easier with the likes of Ben Roberts, Richard Ashby, Julian Thew and Ram Vaswani seated with him.

Mizzi lost a large pot to the Pot-Limit Omaha Champion, Jani Vilmunen, to leave himself relatively short-stacked. Vilmunen led out for 3,200 on a Js5d6d board, but Sorel was having none of it and made it 8,200, essentially putting Vilmunen all-in as he only had 10,000 or so chips. Vilmunen duelly put the rest of his stack in the middle and Mizzi follwed suit. Both players had a flush draw, Mizzi with QdTd but his opponent's AdKd put him in a commanding position. The turn and river changed nothing and Mizzi was now the one in the need of a double up.

This would not happen though as he moved all-in with king-nine, only to be called by Julian 'Yo-yo' Thew holding ace-three, which held and sent the young Canadian to the rail.

Of the 178 players who started the day, an impressive 107 will return for Day 2. Steve Zolotow had managed to take his stack to the 160,000 mark, whilst Praz Bansi (130,000) and November Nine finalist Antoine Saout (121,000) are not too far behind.

Two Betfair pros remain and have a legitimate chance to have a repeat of the 2007 WSOPE Main Event heads-up battle as John Tabatabai will return with a 85,800 chip stack whilst Annette Obrestad will be doing battle with a 51,950 stack.

Play restarts today at 1730 UK time, with the later start time being in respect of the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur.

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