The final eight players in the World Series of Poker Europe, presented by Betfair, have finished up the first round of the day and after a brief pause will be back at the table to play out the 8k / 16k blind level witha 2k ante.  The first level saw only one elimination, but plenty of chips moving around with Ivan Demidov jumping to the top of the chip counts at the expense of John Juanda.The largest pot between Demidov and Juanda came when Juanda opened for 36k and Ivan made it 99k.  Juanda called and on the JJ6 flop Juanda check raised Ivan’s 125k bet to 314k.  Demidov called and on the 8 turn Juanda again checked over to Ivan.  This time Demidov (left) bet 277k and before the bet was out Juanda had already mucked his hand giving Ivan the pot and the chip lead.

Scott “emptyseat88″ Fischman was able to win a pot at showdown with pocket fives and pick up an unexpected pot on the board showing in no particular order A-K-Q-J-9.  That and a few other small pots brought fishman up to 560k by levels end.

A quiet Daniel Negreanu lost a little ground the first level, but seems content to bide his time and get a feel for how the table will play out.  In his blog on PokerRoad.com Daniel predicts the final table will take at least 15 hours to play out, so he is settling in for the long haul. 

Here are how they stack up going into the second level of the day:

Ivan Demidov - 2,050,000
Stanislav Alekhin - 1,880,000
John Juanda - 905,000
Daniel Negreanu - 730,000
Scott “emptyseat88″ Fischman - 560,000
Bengt Sonnert - 430,000
Toni Hiltunen - 395,000
Robin Keston - 310,000

• October 2, 2008 -- The Russians Are Coming!
• October 1, 2008 -- Neff Bubbles Final Table, Nine Left
• October 1, 2008 -- Neff Busts Lodden, Down To 10
• October 2, 2008 -- Turned Upside Down, But Still Evenish