"Big John" Lytle Leads the Final 63 After Day 2 of the MSPT Venetian $1,600 Main Event
Day 2 of the 2020 Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) Venetian $1,600 Main Event saw 326 players return to action from 1,069 entries over three starting flights, but it was one of 170 additional Day 2 entries in "Big John" Lytle (3,888,000) to make their way to the top of the leader board among the 63 that remained when play ended for the night.
Lytle used a combination of aggression, good cards, and winning races all night to become the first player over 1 million, nearing that mark before the dinner break and eclipsing it shortly thereafter. Lytle continued to ascend as the night went on, knocking out Michael Rossitto on the bubble to take a stack of 1.4 million into the money. His work was nowhere near done, though, and he nearly tripled that stack as the next three-and-a-half hours wound off the tournament clock.
Following Lytle in the counts is Dale Eberle (2,699,000). Eberle entered the day with a top-10 stack and saw it continue to increase through the evening to finish the day second out of the 63 that put chips into bags. In total, five other players bagged seven-figure stacks, with Martin Zamani (1,658,000) being the largest stack of those five: James Vales (1,492,000), Hesam Alagha (1,333,000), Day 1a chip leader Salim Admon (1,091,000), and Jason Obinger (1,021,000) will all be taking stacks of over 60 big blinds into Monday's Day 3 as well.
Other notables to make it through included Saad Ghanem (680,000), Ralph Massey (658,000), Vic Peppe (428,000), Aaron Massey (288,000), and Michael Rocco (260,000).
Last weekend's $1,100 Main Event champion Landon Tice was among those who did not advance, falling in 68th place just a handful of minutes before the end of the night. Ben Keeline (79th), Matt Bond (86th), Katie Lindsay (102nd), Aaron Van Blarcum (105th), and Shannon Shorr (121st) also joined Tice in making it into the money and being eliminated before the night's end.
Play will resume for Day 3 on Monday at noon local time, giving players an extra hour's rest before what will certainly be an extended day as the tournament plays down to a winner. A massive $327,773 is up for grabs and PokerNews will be on hand keeping you up to date every step of the way. Make sure you come back and see who wins.