Darlo Vansurksum Leads 26 Survivors From Day 1a of the MSPT Grand Falls Main Event
Day 1a of the 2021 Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) Grand Falls Main Event is officially in the books with a whopping 224 total entries tallied by night's end. Those who entered came to play and the action at the tables proved to be eventful from start to finish.
Almost a full 15 levels were played to their completion but action came to a hard stop with 26 players finding a bag at night's end with 23:36 remaining in the final level.
The final levels of the night saw players dropping fast and it was a race to see who would end up taking the chip lead. Claiming the top stack was Darlo Vansurksum, who gathered enough chips in the final hand to take the number one spot with 420,000. The battle for the chip lead was close, as five other players finished the day north of 300,000: Todd Melander (397,000), Nicholas Smith (395,000), Luke Blindert (391,000), Graham Beynon (376,00), and Jason Crews (349,000) round out the top stacks.
The action hit a new gear on the final two level's of the evening, which saw the remaining players in the field ultimately drop from 39 down to 26. Chips flew across the room and stacks fluctuated accordingly. Others to advance included Joe Matheson (225,000), Nicola DiTrapani (242,000), Anthony Scarborough (189,000), James Pupillo (134,000), and Alex Wheeler (131,000).
Many players were not as fortunate as Season 12 Point Leader Cy Church, MSPT Hall of Famer's Aaron Johnson and Jason Seitz, along with defending champ Chad Bjorkman were just a few who took their shot at a bag on Day 1a only to come up short. All who have yet to advance will have another shot at finding a bag in tomorrow's final starting flight.
PokerNews will be on hand for the rest of the weekend to bring you all of the action, so be sure to come back for Saturday's Day 1b at 3 p.m. local time.