WPT London Day 3 Begins Without Phil Ivey

There won’t be any WPT main event cash for Phil Ivey this time around.

Just 39 players returned today for Day 3 of the first-ever WPT stop in London – and Phil Ivey wasn’t one of them. Ivey enjoyed a good run until he lost most of his stack with pocket queens against online qualifier Giovanni Safina of Italy when Safina flopped three tens with J-T. The rest of Ivey’s stack went when Luke Schwartz flopped the nut flush against him, leaving the Great One plenty of time to play high-stakes London cash games before WSOP Europe gets started in two weeks.

A handful of notable players did advance to Day 3, though. Praz Bansi and Richard Ashby were among the group of British poker pros who won WSOP bracelets this year, and both are still in contention to win the first WPT event on British soil. Angry young man Schwartz made it through to Day 3, but he lost a coin-flip in the early going to bust out. WSOP Tournament of Champions winner Huck Seed also found a way to get to Day 3 and even moved toward the top of the leaderboard for a bit, though he took a nasty beat holding A-K against A-9 shortly afterward to find his stack in jeopardy.

Today will likely be a short day for WPT London, since there are two more days of play left and the last is reserved for the final table. Tomorrow will see the tournament play down to that final table, as well as the £15,000 WPT London High Roller event, which at three times the buy-in of the main event should be enough to get the attention of Phil Ivey.