Only in the modern poker world does the following sentence make perfect sense. Day one is over; see you tomorrow for day one.

That, you see, is a wrap for Thursday, the opening exchanges of the EPT Copenhagen. We started with 144 runners, we are down to 50, but tomorrow another 144 fresh faces enter the fray, each armed with 10,000 in chips for their 30,000 Danish Kroner.

As is expected when a bunch of poker players are given a bunch of chips and told to play, there’s been some fireworks here today. Most of them exploded in the face of Team PokerStars – and the squeamish are advised to turn away now.

Chris Moneymaker thought his kings were good pre-flop. They didn’t look under much threat when the first three cards were a seven, a two and a six. There’s was no way that the former World Series champ could have known a set of sixes was being slow-played, and neither did it matter. The turn brought a king, the money went in, and Moneymaker was miles ahead. Cut to the chase: the case six on the river was a big, big card for someone. It wasn’t Chris Moneymaker.

Isabelle Mercier had never got going. Not until she found an up-and-down straight draw, bet it, liked the call from Julian Thew, especially when her jack fell on the river. Not so fast, Miss Mercier. Julian was sitting with nought but king-high, until that jack filled his gutshot straight and sent No Mercy to the rail.

Hooray then for the Suffolk Punch. Simon Young, of The Sun newspaper, has been on the rough end of some peculiar decisions since he hitched a ride on the EPT charabang. The airline sold his tickets to someone else when he was flying to Dublin, the dealer stole his cards when he was all in in Baden. Just the usual bad beats and outdraws cost him his place in London. But, having flirted with the chip lead in Copenhagen when his aces stood up against kings, he’s still there at the end of the day with 30,750 in chips.

The news is even better for the PokerStars qualifiers. Fourteen still remain, three of whom are among the top ten. When tomorrow starts on Saturday (not a joke), we’ll be keeping a keen eye on Thomas Grundy, Christain Grundtvig, Jim Hagan, Josef Shechter, Olivier Vanneli, Daniel Elkeslassy, David Layani, Adam Nilsson, Travis Biziorek, Ben Sprengers, Chris Hancock, Don Protz, Jason Young and Justin Drechsler. They will all live to fight another day, with some in with solid claims to fight another day after that as well.

As for the rest, it’s been a bad-girl day. Xuyen Pham is the tournament leader at the end of the first flight. She was uncharacteristically quiet for the first few hours, dribbling down to about 5,000 without any major stories. But you can’t keep a bad girl down, and once she got some of those chirping chips, she was back to her former self, in every pot and winning every pot. Except the ones that she lost, but who remembers those?

Thomas Kremser, tournament director extraordinaire, has just finished putting together the official chip count. The full list is below the picture.

Thomas Kremser does the math

Xuyen Pham 89,625
Roy Von Der Locht 63,750
Thomas Grundy (PokerStars qualifier) 62,025
Dario Alioto 61,825
Christian Grundtvig (PokerStars qualifier) 58,350
David Davidsen 50,400
Jim Hagan (PokerStars qualifier) 44,850
Philip Hilm 43,650
Kim Frederiksen 42,925
Karin Lundgren 42,750
Johan Bergquist 40,850
Edgar Skjervold 39,925
Jens Lauritzen 39,550
Johnny Haard 38,700
Josef Shechter (PokerStars qualifier) 36,950
Olivier Vanneli (PokerStars qualifier) 36,750
Daniel Steine 35,725
Stian Haugerud 35,000
Daniel Elkeslassy 34,250 (PokerStars qualifier)
Henning Bolstad 32,750
Simon Young (Team PokerStars) 30,750
Bjorn-Erik Glenne 28,600
David Layani (PokerStars qualifier) 27,125
Julian Thew 24,300
Henrik Fruergaard 24,100
Jan-Erik Madsen 22,525
Dan Pedersen 21,975
Per Arne Dahl 21,225
Hans Eskilsson 20,925
Adam Nilsson (PokerStars qualifier) 20,725
Niclas Adolfsson 20,650
Mads Andersen 19,975
Travis Biziorek (PokerStars qualifier) 19,825
Ben Sprengers (PokerStars qualifier) 18,425
Chris Hancock (PokerStars qualifier) 17,175
Mikkel Haga 16,500
Don Protz (PokerStars qualifier) 16,250
Andreas Hurtig 13,450
Jason Young (PokerStars qualifier) 13,000
Justin Drechsler (PokerStars qualifier) 12,825
Peter Eichhardt 11,600
Ba Kildalen 10,950
Erik Franssohn 10,875
Jan Busch 9,550
Runar Runarsson 8,725
Ingemar Backman 7,825
Runar Pedersen 7,525
Christer Lovas 5,150
Birgitta Johansson 4,725
Josef Kollarits 4,075