Poker Popularity Showcased At First WSOP Europe 2010 Event

Venue packed for Six Max bracelet competition The 2010 World Series of Poker Europe - the fourth year this has been held - kicked off at the Empire Casino in London this week, attracting an impressive international crowd of top poker players. The first competition up was the $2 500 buy-in Six Handed NLHE, where 244 entrants packed the venue, again illustrating the popularity of poker in general and the Six Max format in particular. Earlier this year, the Las Vegas version of WSOP experienced a similar demand for the six max game, with one event pulling in 1 663 entries, a significant increase over the previous year, and another a further 1 245 players. The star-studded entry field generated a prize pool of GBP 610 000 for the event, which will see the last 24 places cashing and the winner collecting GBP170 802. Celebrity spotters noted the presence of players like Annette Obrestad, Tom Dwan, Andy Bloch, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, Erik Seidel, Allen Cunningham, Michael Mizrachi, John Racener, Phil Hellmuth, Mike Matusow, Erik Seidel, Chris Ferguson, Justin “BoostedJ” Smith, John Juanda, Frank Kassela, Men Nguyen, Sorel Mizzi, Brandon Cantu, Antonio Esfandiari and Phil Ivey, although most of these were busted out in the first day of action, which ended with 31 survivors preparing for another round on Wednesday afternoon. Among the survivors, headed by Canadian first day chip leader Andrew Pantling on 106 100, were Jeffrey Lisandro, Chris Moorman, Javed Abrahams, Chris Bjorin, Tai Tran, Liv Boeree, Praz Bansi, Bryn Kenney, Andrew Lichtenberger and Phil Laak. Average chip stacks are currently at 59 032. At 2pm London time Wednesday the 31 players left standing will again convene to fight it out down to a final table of six, which will then decide the winner on Thursday.