Victoria Livschitz opened from under the gun to 2,400 and was called by Alex Keating on the button. Sam Grafton then three-bet from the small blind to 12,000, and Livschitz got out of the way.
Keating called to see the flop, where Grafton led out for 3,500.
Keating took a moment before raising to 22,000, and Grafton didn't need much time to make the fold.
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 eliminateEhsan 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 AmbassadorSam 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.