Milde but not meek UKIPT Day 1a in Nottingham
- by Josef Rantamaki
The much-publicised Midlands leg of the UKIPT, with its £1 million guaranteed main attraction, at the DTD casino in Nottingham, was under way with PokerStars pro, Marcin Milde taking the chip lead at the end of Day 1a, with 278,700 to his name. Five hundred and thirty-two poker players ponied up for a crack at the big prize, only 100 who paid the £700 + £70 buy-in survived to play another day.
Big interest
The registration ceiling was originally set at 1,500 but if interest over the next two days continues in the same manner, that figure could well be exceeded. Thursday’s entrants look well on the way to beating the 532 that showed up the day before and there is a likelihood of pushing the total nearer to 1,700 by Friday.
Milde will be hoping to beat his sideshow win at the UKIPT in Blackpool last November where he landed himself an £8,500 payday, especially as the Nottingham event has a £220,000 price tag attached to first place.
Former champs leave
There were a couple of well-known players to take the Robin Hood tour early and these included former champions Andrew Colleridge, Gareth Walker and a late starting Zimnan Ziyard who went bust before the day’s final count.
Let us look at Nottingham’s happy top ten from Day 1a:
- Marcin Milde (UK) 278,700
- Sean Byrne (UK) 214,800
- Benjamin Carpenter (UK) 207,200
- Phil Long (UK) 193,200
- Iaron Lightbourne (UK) 192,000
- Shean Smith (UK) 175,900
- Adebayo Odetoyinbo (UK) 167,400
- Timothy Chung (UK) 159,900
- Scott Davies (UK) 157,900
- Jamie Dale (UK) 153,600