Ed Roger has been grinding like Tony Hawks today and was just seconds away from becoming my 'Grinder of the Day' (an illustrious award, I'm sure you'll agree), but then disaster struck as he found himself sitting on the rail with just four hands to go!
It was Ivey-conqueror Peter Wood who lit the first spark, opening to 2,400 form UTG+1. With around 20,000 in front of him, Roger moved his sole column across the felt from the button, but was chagrined to hear John Tabatabai announce all-in from the small blind for around 45,000.
"No way, no way," boomed Peter Wood as he rose abruptly from his seat, frustrated to be faced with a tricky decision so late in the day. "No way, not 12 minutes from the end. Fold, I fold."
After inquiring as to his opponent's hand, Roger celebrated the good news with a sense of relief: "This is awesome! I'm coin flipping and I have no idea how."
Roger:
Tabatabai:
But despite his elation, the Poker Gods were in decisive mood and swiftly dashed any hopes with a flop, much to the relief of Wood who claimed to have folded tens. Roger did have outs to a flush, but no such fortune emerged as the turn and river came and respectively to send him home.
With Allen Cunningham's exit, that's all members of Team Full Tilt eliminated in today's action. Phil Ivey and Cunningham both went deep but both came out on the wrong side of coinflips. The others Erik Seidel, Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer and Tom Dwan fell much earlier and will have to wait until Thursday's £5,000 PLO to try and take a WSOPE bracelet.
The 2010 World Series of Poker Europe has kicked off and it did so with a bang today. The £2,650 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold'em event saw 244 players hit the felt in a jam-packed Casino of the Empire here in London, England. At day's end, a long 10 levels later, 31 player remained.
Plenty of big names hit the floor today to get things off and running for the first European bracelet event of the year, but unfortunately for many of them, they also hit the rail. Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi, John Racener, Allen Cunningham and John Juanda were all eliminated it what was a very fast and furious day.
At the top of the leaderboard sits Andrew Pantling and he'll resume play tomorrow as the chip leader. He bagged up 106,100 chips. Hot on his heels are Chris Bjorin with 103,800 and Tai Tran with 103,400. Bjorin is tied for the lead with most WSOP Europe cashes to his name, having four. He's tied with Daniel Negreanu, who isn't here. If Bjorin cashes -- and it looks like he's going to with stack size -- he'll take the lead in that category.
Tomorrow's play resumes at 2:00 p.m. here in London. Seven of the players returning won't make the money as only 24 spots payout. If you want to find out who those players are and get in on the rest of the action, be sure to turn right back here to PokerNews.com for all your live WSOP Europe coverage!