James Mitchell Tops Day 1c of the Main Event; William Kassouf Advances with Big Stack
The PokerStars Festival London £990 Main Event can already be considered as a thorough success, smashing the initial guaranteed prize pool of £400,000 after three very successful starting days thus far. Day 1a attracted 169 entries, and another 164 players showed up yesterday for Day 1b. But that was nothing compared to the spectacle in the Hippodrome Casino today, when 444 players were sent into every possible room with a poker table in it.
Six different rooms on three different floors were used and less than 150 hopefuls bagged up chips with James Mitchell storming into the lead late on after a massive four-bet shove of table neighbor Attila Farkas with ace-three came at the worst possible timing. Mitchell had pocket aces and the short stack in the hand stood no chance either to award the Brit a massive stack of 373,600 in the bag.
Right behind him is no stranger from the festival here in the center of London: Yuriy Boyko was the chip leader of the £2,200 High Roller after Day 1 and eventually finished 4th, the Irishman is second in chips for Day 1c with 336,200 while Spani's Guillem Cusco Bach follows in third with 328,500.
Other big stacks and notables who made it through include 2016 WSOP International Circuit Paris champion Nicolas Noguera (253,300), Smit Trivedi (205,000), William Kassouf (178,200) Matt Perrins (130,000), Ludovic Geilich (104,600) and Team PokerStars Pro Liv Boeree (32,700). Kassouf scored a very late double against Alexandra O'Brien after flopping the nut flush with ace-deuce suited and getting into the head of O'Brien to pay him off on the river.
Among those to bust throughout the day were Praz Bansi, PokerStars Team Pro Jake Cody, snooker legend Stephen Hendry, Fraser MacIntyre, James Akenhead, 2016 Irish Open champion Daniel Wilson, the High Roller champion Joe Johnson and runner-up Enzo Del Piero, as well as Martins Adeniya.
Akenhead five-bet shoved a below average stack early on with five-six suited and ran into pocket queens. MacIntyre got it in good with ace-king against four opponents only to see Noguera flop a full house with queen jack. Hendry played very patently but never managed to build up a stack before running with ace-seven suited into the pocket kings of James Koumis.
All players that busted on any of the three previous starting days are allowed to re-enter the turbo heat Day 1d as of 10 p.m. local time and the event features the same starting stack of 30,000. However, the level duration is limited to just 20 minutes, which will see everyone breeze through in a matter of four hours.
Day 2 of the record-breaking Main Event will then recommence tomorrow at 11 a.m. local time and the PokerNews live reporting team will be there for all the action. The prize pool and official number of entries will be confirmed when the registration is closed in level seven of the turbo heat.