A new group of players lined up for Day 1B of the European Poker Tour (EPT) London Main Event Monday, looking to join the 105 who made it out of Day 1A for Day 2 on Tuesday. As expected, the Day 1B field was larger than that of Day 1A: 389 versus 209. Leading the 230 survivors from Monday was Maximilian Senft, who, with 223,000 chips, was the only player in the entire tournament aside from Day 1A leader Dhru Patel with more than 200,000 chips to his name.
Despite there being almost twice as many runners on Day 1B as were on Day 1A, the overall turnout for the 2013 EPT London Main Event was quite low compared to past iterations of this tournament. Last year’s figure – 647 – was the lowest since Season 5. This year’s (Season 10) has slumped to 598, just two players more than the aforementioned Season 5 EPT London Main Event.
With the 598 player field, the total prize pool is £2,929,400, with £560,980 going to the winner. Payouts will be made down to 87th place.
From close to the beginning of the day, it looked like it was meant to be (at least for Monday) for Maximilian Senft. Right at the end of the first level, he opened the pre-flop betting to 300 chips, only to see an opponent re-raise him to 700. Yann Dion proceeded to four-bet to 1,800 Senft played back with another raise to 4,400. The other player folded and Dion SIX-bet to 7,100. Rather than continuing the raising war, Senft decided to call and the two saw a flop of K♣-K♠-8♠. After all that prior raising, both players checked, bringing on a turn of Q♠. This time, Senft bet 4,000 and Dion called. Upon seeing the 8♦, Senft moved all-in. Dion finally called after some thought, disappointed to see Senft turn over A♠-K♥, good for a full house. Dion showed pocket Aces before surrendering the pot to Senft. That gave Senft 55,000 chips, putting him well on his way to his end-of-day dominant chip stack.
Senft has never won a major live tournament, though he did just find some success on the European Poker Tour, finishing 30th in the EPT Barcelona Main Event and winning €24,720. He does have one lesser victory to his credit, coming this past March in the German Championship of Poker (GCOP) III Main Event (€51,713). Senft’s biggest cash came last year at WPT Vienna where he finished seventh for €36,870.
The 335 survivors from Days 1A and 1B have already begun play on Day 2 at EPT London. Registration was actually open until the start of today’s action, so there will probably be a few more British pounds added to the prize pool.
2013 European Poker Tour London Main Event – Day 1B Chip Leaders
1. Maximilian Senft – 223,000
2. Davidi Kitai – 163,100
3. Chris Brammer – 161,200
4. John Juanda – 156,100
5. Jan Sjavik – 146,800
6. Jason Tompkins – 120,000
7. Steven Warburton – 115,000
8. Grant Levy – 109,600
9. David Ulliott – 107,000
10. Ariel Celestino – 102,000