A star-studded field made their way to the English West Midlands for Day 1b of the £888 888poker LIVE Coventry Main Event, and by the end of the night, one of them ended up as the overwhelming chip leader.
Yiannis Liperis already has more than $3,000,000 in career earnings and put himself in a position to make a deep run here in Coventry. Liperis doubled up late in the night with the nut straight against Matt Davenport on his way to bagging 507,000, putting him atop the 34 players who have booked a ticket into Day 2.
Tan Le busted earlier in the day but reentered and was on the right side of an aces versus kings cooler, ending up with 397,000 and in second place. Paul Ephremsen (352,000) won one of the biggest pots of the day when he had a pair of queens against Keith Littlewood, while Tuan Le (308,000) and Sheng Zheng (302,000) round out the top five.
Day 1b Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yiannis Liperis | Cyprus | 507,000 | 169 |
| 2 | Tan Le | United Kingdom | 397,000 | 132 |
| 3 | Paul Ephremsen | United Kingdom | 352,000 | 117 |
| 4 | Tuan Le | United Kingdom | 308,000 | 103 |
| 5 | Sheng Zheng | United Kingdom | 302,000 | 101 |
| 6 | Mark Reed | United Kingdom | 236,000 | 79 |
| 7 | Daniel Laidlaw | United Kingdom | 235,000 | 78 |
| 8 | Carl Spencer | United Kingdom | 227,000 | 76 |
| 9 | Vivian Saliba | Brazil | 219,000 | 73 |
| 10 | Sohrab Tavakkoleet | United Kingdom | 219,000 | 73 |
888poker Ambassador Vivian Saliba fired multiple bullets on Day 1b before finding kings to double up, finishing with 219,000. Other top stacks include Daniel Laidlaw (235,000), Dean Hutchison (174,000), and Carl Shaw (165,000).
Other members of the 888poker team didn’t fare as well as Saliba. Nick Eastwood, Ian Simpson, Lucia Navarro, Josh Manley, and Aaron Barone all hit the rail on Day 1b, as did Niall Farrell, Tom Middleton, Jose Aguilera, Leo Worthington-Leese, Florian Duta, and the unpredicatable Terry Jordon, who fired five bullets with his erratic style of play. They’ll have to try again tomorrow in order to resume their pursuit of the title.
The 180 total entries on Day 1b combined with 85 on the first starting flight to create a field of 265 through the first two opening days. Just 51 remain in the hunt when Day 2 begins at 11 a.m. on October 28. There is still a Day 1c flight tomorrow and a turbo Day 1d flight at 8 p.m. Late registration remains open until the start of Day 2, so the field should grow exponentially until that time on the way to the £500,000 guaranteed prize pool.
A crop of new and returning hopefuls will be back tomorrow, and PokerNews will follow all the action throughout the remainder of the tournament here in the Coventry Building Society Arena.
