Gil Levy Leads 26 Players at End of Day 1c in $1,680 NLH Mystery Bounty Main Event

Connor Richards

Level 15 : 3,000/5,000, 5,000 ante

Florida native Gil Levy bagged the chip lead at the end of Day 1c in the $1,680 NLH Mystery Bounty Main Event at 2022 bestbet Jacksonville Spring Series with a stack of 450,000, ahead of fellow big stacks Joseph Dornish (429,000), Adam Gardner (406,000) and Keith Schwartz (307,000).

Only 26 players survived to bag Day 1c, including Richard Malone, Charles Kelley, Dickie Malone, Steve Zhang, Jessica Cai and Mary Darnell, who took down the opening event earlier in the series to earn $36,450.

They will join the other 26 players who survived the first two starting flights for Day 2 action on Sunday, May 1 at noon ET, which will play down to a winner, who will take home the trophy and $81,245. Each player returning for Day 2 is guaranteed a minimum cash of $1,781, and any elimination will earn players a draw at the alluring $50,000 bounty.

End of Day 1c Top 10 Chip Counts

RANK	PLAYER	CHIP COUNT	BIG BLINDS
1	Gil Levy	450,000	113
2	Joseph Dornish	429,000	107
3	Adam Gardner	406,000	102
4	Keith Schwartz	307,000	77
5	Richard Malone	282,000	71
6	Charles Kelley	279,000	70
7	Steve Zhang	270,000	68
8	Caleb Larsen	269,000	67
9	Larry Musall	243,000	61
10	Justin Swilling	220,000	55

Day 1c Action

The third and final flight attracted 208 runners to make it the largest flight by a significant margin. In total, the three starting flights attracted 405 runners to generate $405,000 in prize money.

World Series of Poker bracelet winner David Jackson was among the players in the Day 1c field, but the Jacksonville native was eliminated before the end of the day. Other players who couldn't survive to bag include Brenda Miller, Kelly Salgado, Lunique Petiote and Edward Mroczkowski, who bagged the first two starting flights and was looking to do it a third time.

Matt Sundberg zig-zagged his way through the day and made a number of big laydowns, including folding top set against an opponent's rivered backdoor flush. Sundberg finished the day with 101,000 as he looks to make a deep run on Day 2.

Levy's fantastic Day 1c, which will see him enter Day 2 with 113 big blinds, was achieved with assistance from Robert Thrift, who took the chip lead late in the day but later doubled up Levy, who was also a big stack at the time, after running an ill-timed bluff. Thrift had built up a stack by delivering bad beats to multiple opponents, but his streak had to come to an end.

Charles Wardlaw was eliminated on the bubble when his ace-three couldn't fare against the nine-seven of Jason Lee, who flopped a pair of sevens. It marked Wardlaw's second close call in the Main Event after the young eccentric grinder soft-bubbled Day 1a.

Levy will be joined by fellow Day 1 chip leaders Timothy Pollard (Day 1a - 296,000) and Jason Cummings (Day 1b - 561,000).

Information about the bounty element of the tournament is available in the table below. Stay tuned as PokerNews will be back to report on the Main Event Day 2 action.