The Casino at the Empire in London, England has hosted three preliminary events of the 2008 World Series of Poker Europe. Saturday marked the first day of the WSOPE Main Event, a £10,350 buy-in tournament. It attracted 165 poker players from across the continent and across the world. PocketFivers who made the trek to London and played on Saturday included Scott R_A_Y Montgomery (pictured) and Chris Moorman1 Moorman. When play ended for the day, the former boasted the fourth largest chip stack in the room with 81,650 chips. PocketFiver Justin Boosted J Smith led the pack at the Casino at the Empire with over 150,000 chips. The average chip stack is 37,000. Play resumes at 1:00pm local time for Day 1B. All of the action from the WSOP Europe can be found on PocketFivesLive.com, your home for WSOPE coverage of online poker players in London.

Scott R_A_Y Montgomery is a member of the November Nine, the final players remaining in the 2008 WSOP Main Event. He and eight other players will return to Las Vegas in November to resume this $64 million prize pool event. Montgomery also took fifth at the World Poker Tour’s L.A. Poker Classic, banking nearly $300,000. He’ll enter the WSOP Main Event final table third in chips with 19 million, trailing chip Dennis Phillips’ first place stack of 26 million. The WSOP Main Event winner will take home $9 million.

Number two ranked player Chris Moorman1 Moorman (pictured at right) finished Day 1A of the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event with 53,700 chips. He’s proven that he’s one of the top tournament players both live and online. He is a five-time PocketFives Triple Crown winner (6/1/08, 8/17/07, 3/7/08, 8/3/08 and 8/16/08) and won the $1K Monday on Full Tilt Poker in April for $82,750. On September 25th, he won the $100 rebuy on PokerStars for $17,000. He has a pair of World Series of Poker cashes; both came in 2008 and combined for $7,000. Moorman was ranked number one in the PocketFives Online Poker Rankings last week, but swapped places with Alex AJKHoosier1 Kamberis in the latest Rankings update.

PocketFivesLive.com Tournament Reporter Court Harrington, who is on location in the Casino at the Empire, commented, “Moorman seems shy and quiet in his demeanor, but at the tables he is a beast. He grabbed chips early in the day and was able to build and maintain his stack throughout the day. He is not that well-known in the live arena yet, but a little face time with the live players will make them perk up and remember who he is - the kid that took all of their chips.”

Peter #1Pen Neff (pictured at right) enters Day 2 of the WSOP Europe Main Event holding the 47th largest chip stack among Day 1A survivors with 27,250 chips. He made a deep run in the Las Vegas WSOP Main Event, finishing 36th and cashing for $193,000. He took third in Event #5 of the 2008 PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker, taking home $337,050. Harrington stated, “He stayed patient today after getting short-stacked early. He waited for a good spot to double up and then was able to build up a little from there. His patience and confidence make him a big threat in any tournament, no matter how large or small his chip stack is.”

Here were some of the chip stacks of PocketFivers who competed on Day 1A:

Justin Boosted J Smith - 158,925
Scott R_A_Y Montgomery - 81,650
Scott emptyseat88 Fischman - 70,650
Chris Moorman1 Moorman - 53,700
Ben Grundy - 46,000
Isaac Haxton - 35,500
Isaac mr menlo Baron - 34,550
Peter number1pen Neff - 27,200
Tim Tmay420 West - 19,975
Jonathan FatalError Aguiar - 13,250

The top 10 chip stacks overall after Day 1A were:

1. Justin Smith - 158,925
2. Eric Gothenburg Sagstrom - 98,750
3. Andy Bloch - 97,100
4. Scott Montgomery - 81,650
5. Ivan Demidov - 73,625
6. Brandon Adams - 72,475
7. Mike Matusow - 71,550
8. Scott Fischman - 70,650
9. Dustin Dirksen - 70,100
10. Goran Gratte – 67,725

A few PocketFivers were eliminated on Day 1A. They included, but were not limited to:

Amit Amak316 Makhija
Marco CrazyMarco Johnson
Jason JP_OSU Potter

Play will resume for the 2008 WSOP Europe Main Event on Sunday at 1:00pm local time. Check out all of the action from Day 1A at PocketFivesLive.com. We’ll see you soon for Day 1B!