It is always a great feeling to start a major live tournament well and bag up plenty of chips at the end of your chosen start day, especially in a tournament as prestigious as the partypoker World Poker Tour National UK Milton Keynes Main Event. If you do not belive us then ask Christopher Thomson who finished the first of three starting flights as the tournament’s chip leader.
Thomson flew under the radar for the first half of proceedings, but then went on a tear later on to finish with the welcomed problem of trying to fit 142,000 chips into a single overnight chip bag. As the clock struck 23:00 on Thursday night, Thomson was involved in a large pot that saw his stack double to 34,000. Thomson flopped quad fives and was paid off handsomely by a seven-high straight.
During the same level, Thomas sent a short-stacked Chris Spicer to the sidelines when the later moved all-in with 
and Thomson looked him up with a pair of black nines. Those nines held, Thomson stack swelled to 45,000 and he never looked back from that point on.
We spoke to Thomson after play had ended for the night and he told us that his twin brother, James, had finished Flight 1 of the partypoker National UK London Main Event as the chip leader and Christopher wanted to do the same here in Milton Keynes.
“I like it,” said Thomson, “The structure is good, the prizes should be good and it suits aggressive players like me!”
When asked if Thomson was going to take advantage of the accumulator format and play on any of Friday’s two flights he said: “I might play in the afternoon because I have a party to go to on Friday night.”
Thomson’s opponents will be hoping he has too many drinks on Friday night!
One other player, Stephen Bean, finished Flight 1 with a six-figure stack; Bean ended Flight 1 with 125,300 and looked to be the chip leader for a while before Thomson’s meteoric climb up the chip counts.
Other notables to have made it through to Day 2 include Lynne Beaumont (68,900), local player Andrew Brisland (55,500), James Browning (42,500) and partypoker qualifiers Joris Schofenberg (26,800), Ben Spraggons (24,000), John Gudger (22,300), and Michael Latham (17,100).
In total, 37 of the 86 starters progressed to Day 2.
partypoker WPT National UK Milton Keynes End-of-Flight 1 Top 10 Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Christopher Thomson | 142,000 |
| 2 | Stephen Bean | 125,300 |
| 3 | Sunil Mistri | 83,100 |
| 4 | Timothy Slater | 71,100 |
| 5 | Lynne Beaumont | 68,900 |
| 6 | Paul Brown | 67,100 |
| 7 | Mark Thomas | 66,500 |
| 7 | Paul Coughlan | 66,000 |
| 8 | Matan Barkat | 64,000 |
| 9 | Robert Martin | 59,200 |
| 10 | Lee Kiat | 55,500 |
Flight 2 commences at 2:00pm on Friday and will see players complete eight 30-minute levels. Late registration is open until the end of the fourth level and then Flight 3 kicks off at 8:00 pm also on Friday.
The prize pool already has more than £15,000 in it and is sure to at least triple in size – if not more – by the time registration ends at around 10 pm on Friday. If you want to play for big money and prestige this weekend then you simply have to visit the newly opened The Casino NK and compete in the partypoker WPT National UK Milton Keynes Main Event.
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