Other than the 130 or so remaining players left in the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event, it seems the rest of the population of London has decided that Monday afternoon is the time to get on the wireless internet at the Empire Casino and make major uploads or downloads.  The internet connection went from decent, to spotty, to all but non-existent within an hour of play starting.  We seem to be back up and running now so hopefully more regular updates will be flowing out of the media room.

While we were offline the field has been reduced by around 50 players.  Daniel Negreanu has added to his chip lead and is well over 200k.  Justin “Boosted J” Smith hasn’t made a huge move in either direction and is still sitting comfortably near the top of the chip counts.

Peter “#1Pen” Neff (left) added some chips to his stack early and had around 70k at last check.  He spent much of day 1 well below the starting stack before coming on strong late in the day to chip up and finish with 27k.  His upward trend has continued into day 2 play and as the field drops off Neff continues to chip up.

Short stacks to start the day, both Tim “Tmay420″ West and Stephen “Stevie444″ Chidwick have been able to survive the first few hours of play. Chidwick looks to have doubled to around 25k while Tim is still holding on in the low teens looking for a good spot to get his chips in.

“I wish I had more chips,” Adam Junglen said after folding his hand to an all in raise.  With 12k in the pot preflop the board came 875 and Junglen bet 7,200 when the 4-way pot was checked to him.  Alekhim Stanislav then moved in for an additional 23,425 on top of Junglen’s bet.  Adam thought for a long time before quietly saying “I fold” and pushing his cards in to the middle.  He was left with 45k after surrendering his hand.

Tom “Durrrr” Dwan (right) was an early casualty, getting his stack in with a flush draw against Scott “R_A_Y” Montgomery and his pocket aces.  Dwan put pressure on Scott after the flop, but even a 50k bet wasn’t enough to convince Scott to fold his aces on a draw heavy board.  A draw it was for Dwan with his 43 needing to his another spade to make a flush.  Montgomery’s AA held up though and Dwan was sidelined.

Isaac “mr. menlo” Baron has also been eliminated from the tournament.  The bust outs were not quite as quick at the start of the day as is usual for day 2 play, but it didn’t take longs for things to catch up.  The slow structure of this tournament is allowing for more play and taking some of the pressure off the short stacks.

• September 29, 2008 -- Chippers
• September 29, 2008 -- Patience Pays
• September 29, 2008 -- Finish Strong, Day 2 Complete
• September 29, 2008 -- Heating Up

Poker, like many aspects of life, takes a combination of skill, timing, and luck.  Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar put the three together a little over a week ago to win the World Poker Tour event at the Borgata and take the top prize of $1.4 million.  Today’s World Series of Poker Europe Main Event field is full of players trying to work the same magic as Vivek had going across the ocean in Atlantic City.

Rajkumar himself is back at the tables, hoping to parlay his hot streak into another huge score.  The large buyin here (equivalent to $20,000) has brought out the heavy hitters from the live and online poker worlds, but satellites have also put some lesser known faces into the crowd.

With today being the larger of the two starting days (final numbers still coming as late registration is being held open for a while longer) the players are even more spread out around the casino with random tables put about anywhere a few square feet of open space can be found.  There has been some frustration from the last minute arrivals trying to scurry to their tables to get in the action without missing many hands.  The tables are numbered in a fashion that must make sense to someone, but who that person is nobody seems to know.  The order goes something like this: 7-2-13-3-9-6 for one area and 1-21-7-4-18 for another and on and on.  With the help of floor staff the players have mostly found their seats though and the tables went from being half full to pretty much being filled.

Now that all the seats are taken it will be up to the players to start emptying them back out.  The action seems a little slower in the early going today than yesterday, but with only an hour of play as a sample size it is too early to pass judgment.  Alex “AJKHoosier1″ Kamberis avoided an all in by folding the nut straight on a board that put three diamonds out on the river making a flush possible.

Stephen “stevie4444″ Chidwick is one of the players off to a good start.  He is off in one of the corner tables located by itself and not getting much attention.  Chidwick has accumulated some chips early on, looking to have around 30k in front of him.  Also at his table is Jason “JCarver” Somerville.

• September 28, 2008 -- Feature Table, Queen’s Kings Overthrown
• September 28, 2008 -- Win With The Queen High
• September 28, 2008 -- Early BustOuts
• September 28, 2008 -- Bag Em Up, Day 1B Complete