2015 HPO Championship Event Day 1: 662 Entries and Counting; Pedro Oliveira Leads
The third season of the Hollywood Poker Open held its $2,500 Championship Event at the M Resort Casino Spa in Las Vegas, and after Day 1 Pedro Oliveira (369,000) led the way.
Day 1 Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pedro Oliveira | 369,000 |
| 2 | David Kluchman | 282,800 |
| 3 | Steve Warburton | 266,100 |
| 4 | Esther Taylor-Brady | 217,000 |
| 5 | Alex Keating | 215,000 |
| 6 | Patrick Truong | 186,300 |
| 7 | Jiachen Gong | 156,400 |
| 8 | Tim Reilly | 151,300 |
| 9 | Cord Garcia | 151,000 |
| 10 | Oleksandr Gnatenko | 141,700 |
The first and only starting day of this event drew a big 662 entries, 188 of which managed to make it through to Day 2. Late registration for the event will remain open until the start of Day 2, and we're expecting to see some more familiar faces give it another shot.
The field on Day 1 was spectacular, as tons of notables showed up to battle in the beautiful Milan Ballroom. Besides defending champion Simon Deadman, who reentered twice, we spotted Jonathan Little, Jared Hamby, Matthias De Meulder, Justin Young, Eddy Sabat, Matt Salsburg, and Allen Kessler, just to name a few. Unfortunately, none of them made the second day of play, but they can still reenter before the cards are in the air on Saturday at noon local time.
HPO ambassador Chris Moneymaker entertained his table with some friendly bets on the Women's World Cup, but the poker hands didn't go his way. Moneymaker fired a couple bullets, but to no avail.
The Dutch were also represented with Steven van Zadelhoff and Pim de Goede, neither of which made Day 2.
Esther Taylor-Brady did make the next day, and she bagged up a big stack worth 217,000 in chips. Tim Reilly is also among the bigger stacks with 151,300, and so is Cord Garcia wirth 151,000 and Ukranian pro Oleksandr Gnatenko with 141,700.
European Poker Tour champions David Vamplew and Tom Middleton also played, but the latter was the only one to bag up an advancing stack, as he will take 134,000 into Day 2. Recent World Series of Poker bracelet winner and last year's runner-up, Michael Wang, entered as well, but he was unable to survive.
Tracey Sweeney was one of the more active players in the tournament on Day 1, and she will return on Day 2 with 79,300.
Towards the end of the night reentries were plentiful, and Tom Hall, DJ MacKinnon, Artur Koren, and Jake Balsiger were among the ones knocked out.
Play resumes on Saturday at 12 p.m. local Las Vegas time, and PokerNews.com will be right there with you with all the live updates. Click here to follow the live coverage.
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