London have been a part of the UKIPT for the reason that very beginning - be it as a typical stop or as a Grand Final wrapped up as an EPT (Season 1) - so it sort of feels as right as place as any to kick off the sixth season of 1 of probably the most successful and revered tours around. A COMPLETE of 54 trophies has been given out over the primary five seasons, and today, the adventure towards the 55th ceremony started.

Yuan the person to catch

The trophy can be given out this coming Sunday after five long days of poker. Luckily for the survivors of Day 1A, they've two days off now, and can be back for Day 2 on Saturday. A COMPLETE of 146 players turned as much as PokerStars Live on the Hippodrome Casino today with the hope of contesting twelve 45-minute levels. When the dust settled at the last of these levels, 37 remained and were led by Xizhe Yuan who amassed 286,400.

Jack Salter almost pipped him to the post within the last level of the day after a tremendous hand against Jamie O'Connor. The PokerStars Blog caught up with O'Connor after the hand, and despite it being "an important blow" he was more than pleased to kindly walk us in the course of the action.

Salter in second place (where have we heard that before?)

He'd opened to 4,000 before facing a 3-bet to 10,800 from Salter. O'Connor said he flatted with T♠8♠, and the flop came king-jack-four rainbow with one spade. He check-called another bet of 10,800, resulting in a non-spade seven at the turn. O'Connor checked again, and Salter made it 25,000. O'Connor then made a gigantic shove together with his gutshot - clearly thinking he could get Salter off his hand - but that turned out to be ace-king, and Salter went nowhere except up the leader board.

Other big stacks included: Gediminas Uselis (252,800), Nicholas Hennessey (219,600), Patrice Brandt (215,900), Alfie Adam (207,500), Richard Kellett (187,200), Steven Herron (176,500) and Matas Cimbolas (147,300). Kellett had an excessively eventful day. He came back for Day 2 of the High Roller, busted 13th for £3,980, built a large stack basically Event, lost most of it with kings versus ace-king, laughed it off, and rebuilt to a large stack again by close of play. Full counts may be posted shortly.

You can check out the whole end of Day 1A chip counts here.

Kellett got value of the sport of poker today

Sidhu had a unprecedented off day today

Kully Sidhu was one of the crucial in-form players within the field today, coming here at the back of his third-place finish at EPT12 Dublin for €250k, but every dog has his off day, and today was Sidhu's. He was probably the most first players out when he ran pocket aces in to the set of Fabian Deimann. He was joined at the rail by such notables as: reigning EPT Grand Final champion Adrian Mateos; UK legend Albert Sapiano; the one current UKIPT champion (Dublin) Vladas Tamasauskas; Team PokerStars Live on the Hippodrome's Chris Gordon and "Mad Turk" Yucel Eminoglu.

Mateos was defeated today

Today also saw Day 2 of the High Roller play out. The general 28 players returned hoping to (a minimum of) make the general 17 (min cash) and beyond. Simon Appleby was the unlucky bubble boy after his full house was beaten by Luis Rodriguez and his bigger full house. That pot put Rodriquez in a commanding position and he rode the wave the entire solution to the overall table and beyond. He was still in with two players remaining - the placement the tournament had reached by the tip of play by and large Event (check tomorrow's blog for the general results).

The High Roller final eight

Day 1A started at 2pm today however the start times are going to leap forward for the following three days. To ensure sufficient room is freed up for the evening side events at the festival schedule, the powers that be have moved the Day 1B,C and Day 2 start time to 11am. So join us back here within the morning where another twelve 45-minute levels await, and an entire new bunch of faces will appear. For now though, read through all today's action by clicking here.

PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT6 London: Marc Convey and Jack Stanton. Photos by Mickey May, who will permanently watermark you should you steal her photos! Follow the PokerStars Blog on Twitter: @PokerStarsBlog

Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: UKIPT]