UKIPT Edinburgh Underway, Dwan Wins $25 Million

Louis Leads UKIPT Edinburgh

As the cash desks opened and the chips began to flow inside Edinburgh’s Assembly Room, a total of 116 players took felt for UKIPT‘s first festival of 2014. Welcoming some of Europe’s finest players, including Jake Cody, Max Silver and Rupert Elder, the opening session saw some explosive action and unfortunate beats.

Indeed, despite being one of the top pros on display, Jake Cody couldn’t beat bad luck midway through the day after he moved all-in with pocket aces against the J-T of Daniiar Bakchiev. With the flop reading T-7-3 flop, Cody looked confident when his opponent revealed his hand, however, as a jack fell on the turn he soon found himself in trouble. Unfortunately the river was unable to help the PokerStars pro keep hold of his chips and with that he was sent to the rail well before the close of play.

Another player also suffering at the hands of negative variance throughout the day was Max Silver.  Despite an impressive run over the last few months, the Englishman couldn’t find a way to win a pot, let alone a pot of gold at the end of UKIPT Edinburgh‘s rainbow, and he eventually bowed out before the day’s halfway point.

Whilst the likes of Cody and Silver were finding their way to the rail, Leon Louis was thriving. The veteran grinder who final tabled last year’s $10,000 WCOOP under the handle ‘Flippetyflop’ managed to carve his way through the field to finish atop of the day’s 55 survivors.

Raking in 122,700 chips was enough for Louis to stand above the only other to break the six-figure chip barrier on Day 1A: Thomas Ward (119,000).

Day 1B kicked off earlier and at the time of writing a number of recognisable faces have entered the £500,000 guaranteed event, including Vicky Coren, Mickey Petersen and Ludovic Geilich.

To check out live updates from the felt, check out PokerStars’ blog.

UKIPT Edinburgh Day 1A Chip Counts:

Leon Louis – 122,700

Thomas Ward – 119,000

Patrick Weifels – 98,500

Brian Tannerhill – 95,900

Nicos Nicolaou – 95,600

Ben Jenkins – 88,500

Jonathan Lundy – 83,300

Sven Wendt – 80,600

Gary Gracey – 72,900

Lewis Barber – 68,500

Dwan’s Mammoth Macau Win

Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan might not be as prolific in the online poker world as he once was, but if recent reports are true then he’s still managing to win big bucks in the live arena.

According to an article by CardPlayer Latin America, Tom recently walked away from Macau’s StarWorld Casino with a $25 million haul.

Playing in games with stakes reaching $6,000/$12,000 and $15,000/$30,000, Tom reportedly lost $7 million recently but was soon able to make that money back in a rematch.

Tussling with three billionaire businessmen eventually saw Dwan redress his deficit and, after throwing around six-figure bets like confetti, bank $25 million.

As yet the story has neither been confirmed nor denied by Tom, but if it proves to be true then it’s clear why he now plays a lot more live than online.