"At major horse race meets around the UK, you can see that Thursdays are traditionally branded as Ladies Days. They assist bring a marginally of grace and magnificence to an industry that's (normally) very male dominated. Sound familiar?

There are seven (out of 80) ladies within the field today and that is the reason enough for us to (unofficially) name today Ladies Day at the UKIPT."

That's what my colleague Marc Convey wrote at first of Day 1B, and boy (or should I say girl) was he right.

Day 1B chip leader Irina Nikolaidi

The women on this field today dominated the chip lead all day, and after all four of that seven bagged and tagged their chips ready for Day 2. In any case though, it was Irina Nikolaidi who secured the chip lead with 277,900. Nikolaidi led for portions of the day before winning a large pot right on the end to secure the pole position.

A total of 161 players registered to play today, and finally only 39 survived.

But back to the women for a moment. Folks that survived were a skilled bunch indeed; Leo Margets might be taking 78,000 through to Day 2, while Maria Lampropoulos bagged up 63,800, fresh off her 2nd place finish at Eureka6 Rozvadov for €95,404.

A hiya for Leo

Maria Lampropoulos going strong

It was Sirilux Ho who came from nowhere to be a dominant chip leader earlier - at one point having 300,000 when the common was just 50,000! In line with certainly one of her table mates, she made seven straights in a row! She ended the day with 203,400. We glance forward to seeing all four back for Day 2 on Saturday.

Seven straights in a row for Sirilux Ho

Some of the more well-known names who survived the day include James Mitchell (194,800), Louis Salter (32,400), David Docherty (161,500), and Team PokerStars staff member Richard Connolly (131,500). When it came to the largest stacks on the end of the night, the players who most-closely followed were Paul Romain (232,900) and Daniel Palsson (225,700). For full end of day counts click here.

Where there are survivors though, there should be players who didn't make it, and we had quite a few those. PokerStars Team Online's Mickey Petersen unfortunately couldn't get much going today, while former November Niner Andoni Larrabe also didn't reach the top of Level 12.

Mickey couldn't make it

The great John Gale also joined us for many of the day too. The two-time WSOP bracelet winner made his return to poker last year following a two-year absence resulting from serious medical issues (notably a brain tumour), only to win a bracelet! Unfortunately, he couldn't hold directly to come again on Saturday.

No luck for John Gale

Other players who won't be joining us on Day 2 include Deborah Worley-Roberts, Chris Yong, Steve Watts, Marcin Milde, and Neil Raine.

It's been a really perfect day of action though (take a look at the entire live coverage here), and we're expecting a much bigger turnout tomorrow - stuffed with big names and perhaps even a PokerStars Team Pro or two (wink wink).

So join us back here at the PokerStars Blog for Day 1C at 11am tomorrow. Until then, salut!

PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT6 London: Marc Convey and Jack Stanton. Photos by Mickey May, who is not going to take lightly to you serendipitously stealing her photos! Follow the PokerStars Blog on Twitter: @PokerStarsBlog

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Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: UKIPT]