It was the second start day of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour London on Monday at the Victoria Casino on Edgeware Road on Monday. Another 411 players walked through the revolving doors with the £5,250 entry fee in their hands and the hopes of succeeding Benny Spindler as the EPT London champion for Season 9 of the European Poker Tour.

Eight 75-minute levels later, Sergio Aido, the Spaniard who won the UKIPT on Sunday, continued what could only be described as amazing form and finished the day as the overall chip leader with 215,200. Aido picked up £144,555 for the UKIPT win and in the only other tournament he has played this week, he chopped a £1,000 no-limit turbo event for £20,000 with former EPT Monte Carlo winner Nicolas Chouity. So, his form has been quite decent so far.

Chris Moorman flew the flag for the home country and managed to six-bet all in with suited against Steve Warburton’s pocket queens for a 110,000-chip pot with the blinds only 200/400 with a 50 ante. Moorman cracked the queens, and Warburton could’ve been forgiven for thinking he should not have returned back after the dinner break. Following the break, he suffered another horrible beat at the 250/500/50 level, losing with pocket nines to seven-eight suited for a 50,000-chip which sealed his elimination. Moorman thrived in the meantime, finishing the day with 159,800 in chips.

Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu, fresh off Sunday’s team victory over The Professionals from Full Tilt Poker, had a low-key day, eventually busting in a coin flip for a 15,000-chip pot just before the dinner break. Negreanu was joined on the sidelines by fellow Team Pros Jake Cody, Fatima Moreira de Melo, Joe Cada, Vanessa Rousso and Dario Minieri who won’t have great memories of the London event this time. Cody lost a crucial flip to the online wizard Viktor Blom while Moreira de Melo also busted in a flip.

Other people who busted today included: James Dempsey, Todd Terry, Craig McCorkell, Joao Barbosa and Dan Shak. They’ll all have a chance at the side events being played at the brand spanking new PokerStars Live at the Hippodrome venue in Leicester Square.

Someone who enjoys London a lot is the hometown girl Vicky Coren, having won this event for a cool £500,000 back in Season 3. She finished the day with 44,000 to make it to Day 2 joining other notables including Vojtech Ruzicka (122,300), Sam Trickett (80,400), Barry Greenstein (79,900), Toby Lewis (79,200), Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier (65,600), Faraz Jaka (61,600) and Jason Mercier (58,300).

Grospellier was one of several players to join a table christened “The Table of Doom” which featured at one point, Jude Ainsworth, Bryn Kenney, Sandra Naujoks, Shannon Shorr, Andrew Chen and Martin Jacobson – quality worthy of any final table and one that took a starring role on EPT Live.

Be sure to join the Pokernews Live Reporting Team on Tuesday for Day 2 from 12 p.m. GMT for the next chapter of this tournament as we expect to play six more 90-minute levels of exciting action.

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The eagerly-awaited PokerStars.com European Poker Tour London kicked off Sunday at the Grosvenor Victoria Casino, better known as The Vic. A hardy bunch of 236 players posted the £5,000+250 buy-in on the first of two Day 1 flights, and only 131 made it through to Day 2.

It took eight 75-minute levels of play to whittle down to that number, and at the end of the day Canadian poker pro Marc-Andre Ladouceur finished on top with 163,500. Players from the Québéc region of Canada have been dominating the EPT this season, whether it’s at the table or a nearby bar. Ladouceur had already won more than “300,000 in Season 9 and stormed his way through Day 1a. He was a raising machine that caused his tablemates all kinds of trouble.

Someone had to stand up to Ladouceur and that person was Marvin Rettenmaier. To be fair, when Rettenmaier called all-in after a Ladouceur river over-bet he did have a set, but that was no match for Ladouceur who had turned a flush. That put the Canadian up to 170,000 (100,000 more than second placed player at the time) and from there he steadied his ship.

Another player who thrived on Day 1a was EPT Vilamoura Season 6 winner Antonio Matias who finished with 141,000 in chips. Some of those chips came courtesy of Team PokerStars Pro Tono Judet. The man from Portugal was betting into Judet with a flush draw and got there on the river, at which point Judet called all-in, saw his opponent’s hand, mucked, and left the room.

Those two players are well placed for a deep run and a shot of glory, as are Timothy Davie (136,800), Michel Dattani (119,000), Pierre Neuville (83,200), Adria Balaguer (160,300) and Davide Suriano (130,800). Also advancing on Day 1a were Luke Schwartz (66,000), Theo Jorgensen (65,500), Henrique Pinho (63,500), Marcin Horecki (57,000), Alex Kravchenko (52,200), Johnny Lodden (33,200) and Luca Pagano (30,600).

EPT London has seen luminaries such as Team PokerStars Pro Vicky Coren, Benny Spindler, Michael Martin and Aaron Gustavson claim this coveted title in the past. The latter was the only former champion playing Sunday and he didn’t last long. Gustavson got his stack in on the turn when he had the nut straight only for the board to pair up for a player holding a set.

Coren was too busy cashing in the UKIPT High Roller to play the EPT Main Event on Sunday, but the ladies were very well represented as Team PokerStars Pros Vanessa Selbst (54,800), Liv Boeree (56,100), and Leo Margets (57,000) all advanced, as did Annette Obrestad (84,100). Selbst seemed to be in every pot for a while and her stack fluctuated a lot but never to a critical point. Boeree felt like she was back on form, and Margets was stuck in the corner all day but managed to advance. Obrestad, meanwhile, eliminated veterans such as Barny Boatman and Steve Jelinek to cruise through to Day 2.

Joining Boatman and Jelinek on the rail were Dominik Nitsche, Ari Engel, Sam Holden, Wojceich Barzantny, Max Silver, Kent Lundmark, Paul Foltyn, Chris Bjorin, Andrew Teng, Ville Wahlbeck and Scott Seiver.

Day 1b got under way at 12:00 PM GMT and eight more 75-minute levels will be played before all remaining players join forces for Day 2 on Wednesday. Be sure to follow the PokerNews Live Reporting page for up-to-the-minute reports, photos, chip counts, and more!

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Check out the original source here! Originally from PokerNews.com