Casper Leaps Chow Late to Bag Lead
In a race for the chip lead between two Illinois natives, Joel Casper bagged 263,000 to top the 228,500 of Bob Chow at the end of Day 1a of Mid-States Poker Tour Majestic Star. According to Casper, he made a huge call with ace-high on the river during one of the final hands of the night to vault past Chow on the leader board. Both players have more than $600,000 in live tournament cashes, and each is hoping to repeat a past success: both have claimed a victory worth more than $100,000 in this very venue.
Other notables among the 25 to bag at end of the 14-level grind: World Series of Poker Circuit ring winner Bryan Schultz (160,000), Mike Mustafa (158,000), Brian Zimcosky (156,500), Mike Deis (105,000), Brandon Meyers (70,000), and WSOP bracelet winner Chad Holloway (61,500).
A total of 122 runners registered for the first of two Day 1s, and many fell by the wayside over the course of the 10 hours of play. They included Nicholas Aranda, Zal Irani, Paul Bianchi, Mike Holm, Bryan Moon, Larry Ormson, Brett Kuznia, David Gutfreund and Leon Morford, who finished second at this event in March.
Irani met his end painfully at the hands of Holloway when the latter pushed all in from the blinds after Irani bet 6,000 from late position on a board of 
. Two players in between folded, and Irani splashed the rest of his stack in.
Holloway: 
Irani: 
Holloway had the best of it with a straight, but he needed to dodge the board pairing. A harmless 
fell, and he collected his opponent's stack.
Deis, meanwhile, spent the majority of the day at the top of the chip counts, but a late setback cost him a huge chunk of his stack. He called a five-bet shove from Schultz with 
but was unable to catch Schultz's 
as the board ran out nine-high. Still, if Deis can book a cash he looks likely to catch Kou Vang at the top of the MSPT Player of the Year leader board, as Vang did not make a Day 1a appearance.
Day 1b begins on Saturday at 4 p.m. local time here in Gary, Ind., so be sure to come back for more coverage right here on PokerNews.