Jason Bender Leads 17 Survivors After Day 1a of MSPT Riverside $1,100 Main Event
Day 1a of the Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) Riverside $1,100 Main Event is officially in the books with 140 total entries tallied by night's end.
A full 15 levels were played to their completion and when the dust settled, it was Iowa native Jason Bender who bagged the top stack with 437,000. Bender caught momentum at the end of Level 9 when he set-up a double elimination to soar to the top of the counts.
Finishing second in chips was Godson Wright who rivered a four-card straight to eliminate Darren Williams in the last level of the evening to catapult him to 350,000.
Kevin Berthelsen started building his stack in the early stages of the tournament and was one of the first players to eclipse the 100k mark. Berthelsen was able to build off the momentum and finished the night third in chips with 341,000 while Angelo Tsilibiris (274,00), and Rob Chiappone (256,000) round out the top five stacks.
Others to advance included Tim Garles (254,000), two-time MSPT Main Event Champ Taylor Howard (161,000), Phil Mader (118,000), and Joe Landazzi (113,000).
Of course, not everyone was fortunate enough to make it through the night. Among those to fire and fall in Thursday’s flight were MSPT Hall of Famer Aaron Johnson, WSOP bracelet winner Bradley Jansen, along with MSPT Champion's Ken Baime, and John Sun.
Day 1b will get underway at 3.00 p.m. on Friday, March 18th. Late registration and re-entries will remain open through Level 12 (approximately 11:40 p.m.)
PokerNews will be on hand all week long bringing you all of the action, so be sure to come back for Friday's Day 1b at 3.00 p.m. local time.