The European Poker Tour's latest stop will be played at the Hilton Metropole, with the main event starting today and running until October 4th.

According to PokerStars sources, a total of 341 players signed up for the £5,000 Main Event, including November Niner Jason Senti and a big handful of the roster's own pros, such as Vanessa Rousso, Barry Greenstein, Greg Raymer, Arnaud Mattern, Bertrand "ElkY" Grosspellier, Vicky Coren, John Duthie and Ivan Demidov.

Also in the field are roughly 80 players who have qualified directly to the Main Event via PokerStars satellites.

With the event's first day of play currently still underway, Pim de Goede of the Netherlands has taken a preliminary lead with roughly 160,000 chips. The Dutchman is followed by Thomas Bichon from France with 110,000 and Sweden's William Thorson with 82,000. Also off to a flying start are Alex Kravchenko with 62,000 chips and last year's WSOPE Main Event winner Barry Shulman with 59,000.

The third stop of the seventh EPT season will also feature a full schedule of 37 events spread over eight days. The enticing program includes some of the more rare tournament variations, including the European 8-Game Championship and a £5,000 Heads-Up Event.

The European 8-Game Championship is currently being lead by PokerStars pro and newly awarded WCOOP bracelet winner Jason Mercier with just the final table to go. The Championship is planned to be decided tonight, and could crown a remarkable year for Mercier, who has cashed for more than $800,000 in 2010 alone.

Despite many of the world's best poker players still being in London, the main event is, however, remarkably smaller than last year where 730 players signed up, creating a £3,450,500 combined prize pool. The event was won by Aaron Gustavson, who took home close to £850.000.

The London Poker Festival will also include three ladies' events, a £20,000 High Roller tournament and a charity event, organized by PokerStars to benefit Cancer Research UK.