On July 3, Wednesday, the 2019 WSOP Main Event kicked off smoothly with over 1,300 players duking it out on Day 1a. This breaks the record from last year's Day 1a of 925 participants.
WSOP bracelet winner Bryan Campanello was the Day 1a chip leader with 417,500 in his bag, subsequently followed by Raymond Travis Rice (335,000), Timothy Su (297,300), Quentin Roussey (266,400), and Takehiro Kato (259,200).
2019 WSOP: Event #73: $10,000 NLHE MAIN EVENT
- Schedule: July 3 to July 16, 2019
- Venue: Rio All-Suites Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas
- Buy-in: $10,000
On July 4, Thursday, Day 1b of the $10,000 NLHE Main Event has attracted a total of 1,915 entrants, which brings the total to 3,250 entries for flights Day 1a and Day 1b.
When Day 1b concluded, it was Adam Owen who managed to become the chip leader for this flight with a stack of 351,800. The English player is mainly a mixed game specialist at the WSOP events but he has also shown nice skills in the NLHE format too. He played in peace during the first half of the day and then catapulted himself into the chip lead position midway up until the end.
Last April, Adam Owen earned his biggest career score of more than $1.6 million at the $10,300 buy-in partypoker MILLIONS Main Event in Barcelona, Spain.
Other big-stack players moving on from Day 1b include Asi Moshe (330,200), Tyler Gaston (329,200), Brandon Frazier (298,400), and Galen Hall (295,700). Ryan Riess (89,300), Greg Merson (25,000), Chris Ferguson (36,100), and Greg Raymer (73,100) also will move on to Day 2ab. Chris Ferguson was the Main Event champ in 2000, Raymer in 2004, Merson in 2012 and Riess in 2013.
Other notable players who will also move on to the next stage include Christoph Vogelsang (172,100), Phillip Hui (113,600), Jeremy Wien (98,000), Gordon Vayo (96,300), Scott Seiver (89,600), Parker Talbot (82,400), Daniel Negreanu (71,800), and Maria Ho (60,100).
Another former WSOP Main Event champ (in 2005) also joined in on the fray - Joe Hachem spent most of his day inside the Amazon Room's Thunderdome. While he managed to put in his bag 61,300 chips, his son Daniel Hachem who was just a few tables away from him had accumulated 144,700 chips in his bag. Daniel is hoping to follow in his father's footsteps and become an accomplished poker player.
One of the great surprises was Allen Kessler being able to bag one of the biggest stacks on this day (301,800 chips). He is mainly known as one of the biggest grinders on the circuit and is searching for a min-cash. At one point, Kessler was in the chip lead for the day but fell out a bit before the day ended.
Not everyone was lucky enough to survive the day and this means notable names were not spared as well. Those who fell on Day 1b include Anthony Zinno, Dan Ott, Dillon Ott, Dan Shak, Cord Garcia, Craig Varnell, Sean Winter, Valentin Vornicu and Xuan Liu.
WSOP final tablist John Hesp, who won $2.6 million during his first-time visit at the WSOP back in 2017, also appeared on day 1B wearing his customized colorful jacket and he was seated at the secondary feature table the whole time he was there. He unfortunately did not make it to the next day but he sure did leave a lasting impression on all of his tablemates. After he got busted, the well-mannered grandpa shook hands with everyone and put his best smile forward to the cameras.
At the end of Day 1b, just over 1,400 players have survived and will be advancing to Day 2ab.
The biggest of the 3 starting flights shall kick off on Friday, July 5, at 12 pm local time with participants scheduled to play five 2-hour levels.
Source:
http://www.wsop.com/tournaments/updates/?aid=2&grid=1622&tid=17298&dayof=7650&rr=5
