Day 1a Wraps with Chris Moneymaker Bagging a Third of Chips to finish Chip Leader
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There was fast and frantic action from start to finish in Day 1a of the Main Event and in the end, it was PokerStars Pro Chris Moneymaker who finished with the chip lead here at Aspers Westfield Stratford City.
There were 30 unique players who took a seat throughout the day and with 20 re-entries, they generated £6,000 for the prize pool. After 15 half-hour levels had concluded, only six were left standing in a tournament that saw Moneymaker (470,000) procure almost a third of the chips. The vast majority of them came via a four-way all in that saw the American up against three pocket pairs with ace-king. Despite each of his opponents hitting a set, Moneymaker eliminated them all with a broadway straight and he kept a hold on the lead right until the end.
Claudio Iacob (316,000) and Kastriot Shytani (294,000), also had very profitable days and finished in second and third places after eliminating a player each in the closing hands of the night; denying Vernon Sellahewa and Daniel Silverman from progressing to Day 2. Tasos Papanastasiou (202,000), Enrico Milia (123,000) and Dillan Patel (89,000) also made it through, although the latter two will have some work to do, as they have 20 and 15 big blinds respectively when they return on Saturday.
Tomorrow sees it all happen again, as the second of seven starting flights (with an additional one taking place in Milton Keynes on Thursday) gets underway. The structure will be an exact replica of today’s as another set of hopefuls take to the felt in order to try and win an illustrious PSPC 2020 Platinum Pass worth €26,000.
PokerNews will be on hand for the duration, with live updates of all the action as it unfolds from the moment cards are in the air at 6pm.