The first day of a poker Main Event can go either way. Sometimes you will find that it is a hugely popular and a highly populated event with plenty of people looking to get involved. After all, if you are able to book your seat for the main days of a Main Event as quickly as possible, you can’t blame people for looking to get involved early on.
However, there will be plenty of Main Events that can take a while to get started. This is especially true for Main Events that have a first day during the week. With a growing tendency to offer more Day 1 poker events, the first day of major tournaments is moving further back into the week away from the weekend. It can be no real surprise when a Thursday Main Event day 1 receives a limited crowd when a Friday Day 1 event is taking place too. It stands to reason that a Friday is more attractive than a Thursday for many people.
A Level 42 of poker entrants
This is why some folk may smirk at the fact that there were only 42 entrants, which includes people who re-entered, for the Thursday Day 1 event. This will leave some people convinced that the GUKPT Stockton event is not going to be a huge success but everyone involved with the organisation of the event appears calm.
There are already 18 players booked through to Day 2 on Saturday and you won’t hear any of these players complaining or worrying about the turnout. Taking the lead in any poker event is a big challenge and regardless of the size of the event, Craig McDowell can take great heart from his performance. He grabbed an early lead and held his position to be the chip leader at the end of the night. McDowell is a familiar face in the poker community in the North East of England and there will be a few folk tipping him to go far in the Main Event. With a guaranteed prize of £50,000 on offer, he will be hoping he does rather well too!
The rest of the top 10 was made up by Mark Harding, Tom Hall, Stephen Sung, Richard Howe, Hamid Rowshanaei, Latif, Darren Knaggs, Nigel Ventre and George Brown. All of these players can look forward to the Day 2 event with confidence.