Welcome to Day 1a of the PokerStars UKIPT Blackpool Main Event

The PokerStars UKIPT has returned for the third stop of the season. The venue this time is Grosvenor Casino at The Sandcastle in Blackpool. Day 1a of the Main Event kicks off today, Thursday July 13 at 2 p.m. local time.

The buy in for the Main Event is £1,100, of which £970 goes into the prize pool. In exchange for their buy-in, players will recieve starting stacks of 30,000 chips.

Blinds start at 100/100 with a 100 big blind ante and levels progress at 40-minutes, with regular breaks throughout the day. That makes starting stacks relatively deep at 300 big blinds.

Day 1a will play down to 15 percent of the field and those who survive will make it through to Day 2 and into the money.

Players can opt to have up to three entries per flight, with Day 1b and 1c running tomorrow, July 14.

This is the third event on this year's UKIPT schedule. The Irish Open came first, followed by the PokerStars Summer Festival Malta. David Docherty fininshed first in the Irish Open Main Event and currently tops the UKIPT leaderboard. More recently, Simone Andrian won the Main Event in Malta for €153,610.