Eric Chastain Bags Day 1a Lead in HPT Daytona Beach Main Event
Day 1a of the Heartland Poker Tour $1,100 Main Event at the Daytona Beach Racing and Card Club is now in the books. The first flight saw a total of 80 registration slips sold and of those only 16 found a bag by night's end.
Emerging as the chipleader from Day 1a is Eric Chastain, who was near the top for most of the day and took the lead after the dinner break, one of which he never gave back as he finished the night atop the leaderboard with 335,000 in chips. Coming in right behind Chastain on the leaderboard is Johnathan Nader with 250,000.
Three players rounding out the top five include Peter Schultz (233,000), Brian Bowen (231,000), and United Kingdom's James Millman (211,000). A few familiar faces found a bag for Day 2, including Brett Apter (172,000), HPT regular Stan Jablonski (159,000), and fan-favorite Maurice Hawkins (146,000).
Not everyone from Day 1a was fortunate enough to make the next day and some of those that failed to move on are Michael Rossitto, Tony Miles, Alex Rocha, Jason Kapoor, John O'Neal, Jeremy Joseph, and Jeffrey Trudeau
The 16 players that advanced will combine with those who survive the next two starting flights and will return on Sunday, October 26 to battle it out for a shot at a final table birth.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be here to bring you all of the updates in the HPT Daytona Beach Main Event, so stay tuned as all of the action unfolds.