Day 1 Concludes with Krakow On Top
Day 1 of Event #1: �2,700 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold'em at the 2012 World Series of Poker Europe has come to a conclusion. After a nice, late start to the day, eight levels of action are in the books. When registration closed after the dinner break, 227 players had registered. The action was fast and furious all day long, and less than a quarter of the competitors finished out the day. On top of them all was Matan Krakow with a whopping 140,225 in chips.
Krakow is no stranger to this event. Last year, he made the final table and placed fourth for �65,068. He'll certainly be looking to top that finish and has put himself in a solid position to do so with his early chip lead.
Throughout the day, many big names came and went, but none were bigger than Phil Ivey. The man so commonly referred as the greatest player in the game lasted all the way until the final level of the night before falling to the rail. On his final hand, Ivey check-raised all in on a flop of 
against Christophe Julien. Ivey was short and Julien made the call with the 
. Ivey was dominated with the 
. The turn was the 
and river the 
to eliminate Ivey.
Others who were eliminated on the day included past WSOP gold bracelet winners Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi, Tristan Wade, Timothy Adams, Dominik Nitsche and Vanessa Selbst.
Of those advancing to Day 2, Brandon Cantu, David "ODB" Baker and Jennifer Tilly all bagged up bunches. Cantu stormed into the top portion of the leader board towards he end of the night, while Baker and Tilly got off to a blistering start. Phil Hellmuth, McLean Karr, Roberto Romanello and John Tabatabai are also still in contention.
Day 2 will commence tomorrow at 2:00 PM local time. The plan is to play down to a final table, but there will also be the excitement of the money bubble bursting. The top 24 spots are set to be paid with nearly �150,000 going to the winner. Be sure to catch all the action right here on PokerNews starting then.
If you can't wait until the mid-afternoon to get your WSOP Europe fix, you can find live coverage of Event #2: �1,100 No-Limit Hold'em kicking off two hours prior at noon.