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Clash of Generations at Day 1a of Unibet Open London
Day 1a of the Unibet Open London 2017 Main Event is on the books. A total of 154 players showed up for the first starting day of the tour's first stop of its the 10th season. At the end of the day, hometown player Giulio Mascolo bagged the overnight chip lead with 327,600.
Mascolo leads a star-studded pack of 41 survivors, which includes two-time Unibet Open winner Mateusz Moolhuizen, 2016 Unibet Open Malta winner Martin Soukup and Belgian Unibet Ambassador Charlotte Van Brabander.
It was a clash of generations, between old-and-new-school poker players, as players from all ages and nationalities showed up to contest for the coveted title. Poker legends such as Willie "The Dice Man" Tann, Chris Bjorin, Joe Beevers and Sir Ben Roberts duked it out with the younger generation of stars, headlined by none other than Swedish phenom Viktor "Isildur1" Blom. All these players had one thing in common: They failed to advance to Day 2 and will not lift the trophy on Sunday night.
Reigning champion Dave Shallow's title defense came to an abrupt end in the early stages. Shallow suffered a bad beat with pocket kings against the pocket queens of [Removed:158] when the dreaded queen fell on the river. It wasn't the only former winner eliminated by Van Lancker, as Unibet Open 2016 Copenhagen winner Joni Liimatta also fell to the Belgian. Van Lancker ended the day with 305,800 in chips and sits in second place when Day 2 gets underway.
Zoltan Barabas was a long-time chip leader and looked unstoppable for most of the day. After the dinner break, a big hand with pocket jacks against Mascolo's pocket aces went awry and dropped Barabas down the leaderboard. With Barabas' chips, Mascolo found himself on track to the eventual end-of-day chip lead.
Two-time winner Mateusz Moolhuizen didn't have the best seating draw and had to battle with Soukop, Adrien Allain, Tamer Kamel and Sylvain Loosli for the majority of the day. Moolhuizen eventually emerged on top and finished the day with 176,000 in chips.
Unibet Ambassador Charlotte Van Brabander, who defeated Blom heads up yesterday to claim her third successive Ambassadors Battle Royale victory, also made her way to Day 2. Van Brabander was often seen on the feature table and ended up bagging 76,000 in chips.
Day 1b will start tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. local time, which again will feature 10 levels of 60 minutes each. On Saturday, the field will be combined and all players will return at noon.
The new winner of the Unibet Open 2017 London will be crowned on Sunday night. PokerNews will be on the floor throughout the weekend to provide live action of all the excitement in The Poker Room of the legendary Grosvenor Casino in London.
