Mike Watson Leads Loaded Field in £10,300 EPT High Roller
A busy opening day of the £10,300 EPT High Roller has wrapped up at the PokerStars European Poker Tour London, with Mike Watson headlining a star-studded field after 10 levels of play.
Watson entered late in the day, and quickly built up a big stack to take control of his table. The biggest swing of his night came after flopping quads to eliminate Ehsan Amiri on the penultimate level.
In the end, Watson bagged 235 big blinds to pace the field heading into action tomorrow. Plenty of formidable opponents are close behind, including Alex Keating who ran hot for most of the day. Keating was the first player in the field to amass five starting stacks by passing the 250,000 chip mark. He was able to collect even more by the end of play, and returns on Day 2 with 186 big blinds.
Day 1 Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mike Watson | Canada | 353,500 | 235 |
| 2 | Daniel Aziz | Brazil | 281,000 | 187 |
| 3 | Alex Keating | United States | 279,000 | 186 |
| 4 | Renan Bruschi | Brazil | 275,000 | 183 |
| 5 | Leonard Maue | Germany | 239,500 | 160 |
| 6 | Leon Sturm | Germany | 216,000 | 144 |
| 7 | Joao Vieira | Portugal | 214,500 | 143 |
| 8 | Bruno Volkmann | Brazil | 203,000 | 135 |
| 9 | Sam Grafton | United Kingdom | 198,500 | 132 |
| 10 | Alex Kulev | Bulgaria | 176,500 | 118 |
PokerStars Ambassador Sam Grafton sits inside the top 10 chip counts, bringing 132 big blinds into action on Day 2. He'll be joined by fellow ambassadors Parker Talbot and Alejandro Lococo when play resumes at the Hilton Park Lane.
Day 1 Action
The day began with three tables and grew to 12 deep into the night before eliminations trimmed the field by the end of play. One of the late victims was Pedro Gois Neves, who was down to one big blind after a failed bluff against Daniel Dvoress. Neves battled back to reach the final level of the night before ultimately falling to Danny Pyke.
One of the loudest characters in the room was Imad Derwiche, who had a roller-coaster ride early on before cracking aces to climb the leaderboard. He too fell victim later in the night, busting both of his entries on Day 1.
Others to burn two bullets on the opening day included Timothy Adams, Ensan Hossein, Dario Sammartino and Ole Schemion. A total of 139 entries populated the Day 1 field, with 67 finding a bag.
Late registration remains open until the start of Day 2, which begins at 12:30 p.m. local time on Thursday. The final field and payouts will be set as play resumes on Level 11, with blinds of 1,000/1,500 and a 1,500 ante.
Stay tuned to PokerNews as we follow the action all the way to crowning a champion at EPT London.