It could be said today, on the very last day of the inaugural PokerStars Festival London, that the successor of the UKIPT turned out to be a pure success. Hosted by the emblematic Hippodrome Casino in London, the festival attracted players from all around the world to celebrate the game they all love.
The £990 Main Event is probably one of the brightest examples of the instant popularity the PokerStars Festival London gained among players. Its inaugural edition drew 944 entrants (778 unique ones and 166 re-entries). Thus, players had £824,112 up for grabs.
The Main Event kicked off on January 25. Players had four flights to enter it. By the time registration was closed and Day 2 of play started, there were only 347 hopefuls left. And by the time Day 2 was completed, the original field was reduced to just 24 survivors.
Alexis Fleur from France is leading the pack of players left with 2.635 million in chips. The young Frenchman is known to be traveling around Europe to enter cash game pools at popular casinos. Judging by his deep run into the PokerStars Festival London Main Event, tournament poker seems to suit him equally well.
Fleur is followed closely by UK players Smit Trivedi and Lam Van Trinh on the chip counts chart. The former will start the day with 2.5 million in chips and the latter has 2.42 million bagged and tagged from the previous night.
The Main Event is entering its final day with international presence. There are players from the UK, the Netherlands, France, Albania, and other European countries. There are no US players among the final 24. In fact, Australian Eric Cech is the only non-European survivor to have made it to the tournament’s final day.
Day 3 play is set to kick off today at noon local time at the Hippodrome Casino. The 24 finalists will play down to a winner. Each of them is guaranteed a minimum payout of £4,250 but the first-place prize of £112,720 and the accolades that accompany every big champion certainly are what all survivors are eyeing.
King’s Casino in Rozvadov, the Czech Republic will be the host venue for the next PokerStars Festival. The festival will take place on March 2-13 and will feature a Main Event with a guaranteed prize pool of €500,000, among many other exciting opportunities for players.
