Kevin 'Care_Teddy' van Veen Bags Big on Penultimate Day 1
The chips have been bagged in the penultimate starting flight of the ￡230 Lex Live Main Event at the Aspers Casino in London. The chip lead is for Norwegian Andreas Johannessen who bagged 520,000. Johannessen leads 41 survivors out of the 221 entries that were made. Close in second is community member Kevin 'Care_Teddy' van Veen who bagged 469,000. Both of them are close to the top of the overall leaderboard after seven starting days.
PokerStars Ambassador Arlie Shaban also managed to find a bag after eliminating Chris Moneymaker earlier in the day. Shaban ended the day as only surviving Ambassador after starting on a table with four PokerStars Ambassadors, including himself. He bagged 135,500. Community members Peter 'Glaspeer' Glasbergen (245,000) and Stefan Griesbeck (243,000) also bagged at the end of the seventh flight.
The total number of entries with just the turbo flight still going, but with late registration closed, is 990 and 142 already made it through to Day 2. More will make it through after the turbo flight wraps up right before midnight local time.
| Day | Players | Survivors |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1a | 60 | 12 |
| Day 1b | 89 | 17 |
| Day 1c | 69 | 13 |
| Day 1d | 80 | 14 |
| Day 1e | 114 | 24 |
| Day 1f | 98 | 21 |
| Day 1g | 221 | 41 |
| Day 1h | 159 | 40 |
| Total | 887 | 182 |
Day 1g Action
The day started with about 50 people registered but there were already over 100 players in the tournament after about an hour. One of the players that gave it another shot was the 'Original Spragg', Dan Spragg, Benjamin 'Spraggy' Spragg his big brother. He fired two bullets but wasn't able to make a run in the Main Event. Others that gave it a shot but didn't make it include Wessel 'MPADAM' Keizer, 'Job Trekpop', Ger 'Eyesolator' Kamerling, Simon 'Mzzlaar' Steenstra, and Tjenno 'TjennoE' Eskes.
So many people wanted to play that the organization opened up new tables on the fly and four PokerStars Ambassadors were seated next to each other one of those new tables. Moneymaker, James Mackenzie of OP-Poker, Shaban, and Tom 'Pleb_Method' Hayward were all seated next to each other in that order and Shaban was the only Ambassador that found a bag at the end of the day.
Shaban actually eliminated Moneymaker after flopping a set in a four-way pot. Moneymaker turned two pair and the money got in. Moneymaker left the tournament defeated, only to eliminated from the turbo flight a couple of hours later by Adrian 'Croaks' Altgeld.
Other notables that made it through to the second day include Vamshi Vandanapu (99,000), Andrew Wilson (71,500), and Jarno Peeten (43,000)
Extracurricular Activities
The day started very early for most community members as Lex Veldhuis himself had bought up all the tickets to the new Joker movie in the movie theater next to the casino. The movie theater was filled with people from the community and a lot of them jumped into the Main Event after the movie was done.
That was not the only thing going on besides the Main Event. Patrick Winterbottom won a Platinum Pass in a special sit and go. 'Spraggy' had won a Streamer Showdown on Twitch and there was a freeroll in his community. Six players qualified for a Lex Live 2 as they won a package but they also had a very special opportunity to play a six-handed sit and go to win a Platinum Pass. The sit and go was streamed on the PokerStars channel.
When the sit and go wrapped up they held multiple community tournaments on the live stream that was broadcast on Veldhuis's own channel.
PokerNews will be back tomorrow with the coverage of Day 2 of the Main Event. Chip counts of Day 1h will follow as soon as they wrap up. Day 2 will kick off at 1 p.m. local time and the players start with blinds at 2,500/5,000 with a 5,000 big blind ante.