Josh Lowing Leads Final 36 into Day 2 at Lawrenceburg HPO
Welcome to Day 2 of the HPO Lawrenceburg Main Event. With 81 entries on Saturday and 149 entries on Sunday, the Lawrenceburg regional stop to start Season 4 generated a prize pool of $229,000.
Josh Lowing comes into Day 2 as the chip leader, having accumulated a massive stack of 326,500 on Friday’s Day 1a. Lowing will have some tough competition as tour regular Jared Palmer took the Day 1b chip lead with active, but disciplined play during Saturday's second flight. Palmer is stacked at 306,500 and is followed closely by another tour regular, Nick Guagenti (257,500) and tournament force Keven Stammen (244,500). Stammen picked his battles late on Day 1b with another big stack and tablemate Michael Filippidis, who bagged a stout 293,500.
Joby Houck (103,500) is another notable who apparently could not get enough poker, as he entered and won Saturday's Event #29, where Lowing was also a final table participant, finishing in third. Houck headed for some pillow time fully confident that the win vaulted him into the early HPO regional leaderboard lead.
A total of 36 runners advanced and 27 of them will be paid for their efforts. The top prize is $54,956 in cash + a seat in June’s HPO $2,500 Championship Main Event at the M Resort in Las Vegas.
The chase for the title starts at 12:15 p.m. local time, so stay tuned as we will bring you live reporting down to the finish.