Tripodi Leads Last 36 of Day 1a; Polito, Cardyn and Moolhuizen Advance to Day 2
The 2018 Unibet Open London £990 Main Event is off to a good start after 147 players took to the tables of the iconic Grosvenor Victoria Casino in the heart of London on the first of two starting days. After 11 levels of 60 minutes each, only 36 players bagged up at "The Vic" and Clement Tripodi claimed the overnight spotlight with a stack of 275,000.
Second in chips after Day 1a is Bhavin Khatri with 249,000 followed by Denmark's Peter Kaae (226,500). Khatri finished 2nd in this very event in 2016 and 5th in 2017 for £42,500 and £17,720 respectively. Other big stacks and notables that bagged up include Laurent Polito (223,500), Lorenc Boci (203,000), Nicolas Cardyn (140,000), Jeremy Pantin (106,500), two-time Unibet Open champion Mateusz Moolhuizen (79,000), Hendon Mob co-founder Joe Beevers (59,000), Sylvain Loosli (59,000,) and Benjamin Morrison (57,500).
Team Unibet Poker saw two players advance in ambassador Espen Uhlen Jorstad (144,500) and eSports Star Philip "syrinxx" Schoenebaum (76,500), while most of their team mates were dispatched throughout the day. Alan "Hotted89" Widmann ran with queen-jack into queens, Dara O'Kearney failed to crack aces and Jeffrey Brusi's open-ended straight draw with ace-six ended up second best to the overpair of Polito in the final level of the night.
Prior to that, Sophia "Djarii" White, Scott "Sco" McMillan, David Lappin, Fredrik Bergmann, two-time Unibet Open champion and Unibet Poker ambassador Dan Murariu as well as Colin "Koolein" Wijnholds all failed to run up a stack.
Other notable casualties on Day 1a were Antoine Saout, Ross Boatman, Benjamin Philipps, 2017 Unibet Open Bucharest third-place finisher Pavao Veza, Katie Swift, Bojan Zidar, Adrien Allain, Vincent Gabel, Benjamin Philipps and defending champion [Removed:158]. The dreams of back-to-back victories in London ended for the Belgian in level 10 and it was a simple flip that went wrong. Van Lancker's pocket jacks were ahead against the ace-king of Peter Kaae, but the Dane spiked a fourth spade on the river to improve to a flush.
While the Main Event was in full swing, the £2,200 High Roller saw more than 40 players return to the tables and the registration was open for the first level of Day 2. A field of 78 entries emerged to create a prize pool of £156,000 and the top 11 spots were paid. Neophytos Neophtou ended up as the bubble boy after ending up second-best with his ace-five against the pocket queens of Ivan Deyra.
Among those to cash were Catherine Ivgy, Giuseppe Zarbo, Christopher Yong, Rauno Kiviloo and Morten Mortensen. Ivan Deyra and Julien Sitbon cut a deal in heads up, leaving the trophy and £4,500 up for grabs and it would only take 15 minutes for the two Frenchmen to get their stacks in. Deyra was at risk with 
and Sitbon looked him up with 
. Despite flopping best on 
, Deyra was left drawing dead on the 
turn and the 
river was a formality. Sitbon, who won the 2015 Unibet Open Cannes Main Event for €80,000, added a second trophy of the popular live circuit to his collection.
Final Result £2,200 High Roller
| Place | Winner | Country | Prize (in British Pounds) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Julien Sitbon | France | £41,850* |
| 2 | Ivan Deyra | France | £34,050* |
| 3 | Zack Chesses | United Kingdom | £20,050 |
| 4 | Damien Le Goff | United Kingdom | £14,850 |
| 5 | Morten Mortensen | Denmark | £11,430 |
| 6 | Rauno Kiviloo | Estonia | £8,790 |
| 7 | Arron Woodcock | United Kingdom | £7,030 |
| 8 | Christopher Yong | United Kingdom | £5,630 |
| 9 | Giuseppe Zarbo | Italy | £4,500 |
| 10 | Catherine Ivgi | United Kingdom | £3,910 |
| 11 | Kasper Mellanen | Finland | £3,910 |
*denotes deal of the last two players
Most of the High Rollers are expected to join the action for Day 1b of the £990 Main Event that kicks off at 11 a.m. local time. Registration remains open for the first six levels and following dinner break and the PokerNews live reporting team will be on the floor to provide all the action.