Betfair poker pro Annette Obrestad caused something of a shock at last year's inaugural event with victory in the ME, breaking records on her way to her first gold bracelet.

The same may well happen this year but some of the world's best poker stars have played their way into strong positions with the field gradually being whittled down.

At the time of writing, Daniel Negreanu held the chip lead with nearly 400,000 as he looks to add another gold bracelet to his ever-growing tally.

Kid Poker landed his fourth piece of wrist-candy in Las Vegas early this summer, reportedly winning a pretty substantial prop bet with Phil Ivey in the process, and he is looking a strong candidate for his fifth at the Casino at The Empire.

The 34-year-old Canadian, who has also made 31 cashes at the WSOP and won over $10m, is in some pretty good company as well as the established pros start to make their moves for the $2m prize money.

Love him or loathe him, but Mike Matusow is undoubtedly one of the world's best poker players when he is on his game, and he is proving it in London.

The man known as the Mouth, for his reputation for trash-talking on the poker tables, is looking for his second gold bracelet of the year, following his win in Las Vegas in the $5,000 No Limit 2-7 Draw w/Rebuys, which netted him a cool $537,862.

Matusow has also made 25 cashes in the WSOP and earned nearly $7m in tournament winnings, so he won't be afraid to let his opponents know what is what when the pressure is on.

And Erik Seidel could prove to be the man to watch out for as he holds a healthy chip stack with the climax approaching.

The 49-year-old New Yorker finished runner-up in his first major tournament, which turned out to be the 1988 WSOP Main Event.

He lost out to Johnny Chan on that occasion with a hand that has been immortalised in the film 'Rounders', but he has gone on to pick up eight gold bracelets of his own and cannot be overlooked.