Oberhauser Leads The Survivors Of Flight 1a of MSPT Venetian $1,100
After just over 10 hours of play, the starting field of 179 players in The Mid-States Poker Tour $1,100 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event at Venetian Las Vegas Nevada has played down to just 22 players who will return on Wednesday June 15th to play Day 2.
Leading the way is French player Valentin Oberhauser who ended the day with 538,000. Oberhauser acquired chips early on in the day with multiple confrontations with WSOP bracelet winner Kenny Huynh where in one instance he called down three massive barrels with three of a kind. He holds a commanding lead over the field, and has put himself in prime position to make a deep run to go for his first MSPT title.
MSPT Day 1a Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count |
| 1 | Valentin Oberhauser | France | 538,000 |
| 2 | Anselmo Villarreal | United States | 371,000 |
| 3 | Reg Powell | United States | 365,000 |
| 4 | Michael Liang | United States | 359,000 |
| 5 | Adrian State | Romania | 350,000 |
| 6 | Casey Stewart | United States | 278,000 |
| 7 | Justin Belforti | United States | 258,000 |
| 8 | Eluterio Rodriguez | United States | 242,000 |
| 9 | Sean Conklin | United States | 230,000 |
| 10 | Michael Luong | United States | 200,000 |
Also bagging at the end of the day was Reg Powell who ended third in chips with 365,000. Powell has been a staple of MSPT events for a while and his career best score was a runner up finish in the 2018 MSPT Iowa for $54,416. With this bag, he looks to get a large piece of the $1,500,000 guaranteed prize pool.
Other players that found their way to bags at the end of the night included Michael Liang (359,000), Casey Stewart (278,000), Justin Belforti (258,000) and last weeks MSPT Venetian fourth place finisher Jack O’Neill (173,000). Players who were unable to find bags included last week's final tablists Rohan Dhuper, and Fehim Hajdari, as well as Peter Lockwood and Kevin Garosshen. All of these players will have the option to play the following two days’ flights to try to make Day 2.
Given there was 18:35 left on the clock in level 13, the players will return on Day 2 and play the remainder of this level, unless one of the other flights ends earlier, with the blinds going up every 40 minutes after the completion of that level. The 22 players from this flight are the first players assured to play on the second day for this massive $1,500,000 guarantee. Stay tuned to PokerNews for all updates regarding this tournament.