Stephen Song Takes Over at the End of Day 1 in Event #13: $1,500 Big Blind Ante No-Limit Hold'em
There were a total of 1,306 runners in Day 1 of Event #13: Big Blind Antes $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em, which played out at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino. A total of 224 found a bag and moved onto Day 2, which will begin at 12pm on Wednesday, 6 June. The heaviest stack moving on to the second day belongs to Stephen Song, who bagged an impressive 193,100.
It was not until the last two levels of play that Song started to build up his chip count and he did not slow down after this point, ending the day with a healthy chip lead. His biggest cash coming into this event was in January of this year during the $3,500 No-Limit Hold'em WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open Championship for $138,254. Song, who is in the hunt for his first bracelet, will be looking to run deep and surpass that personal best by taking down the $315,346 top prize.
Third in chips is non-other than 2016 WSOP Main Event Champion Qui Nguyen, who boasts over $8,000,000 in live tournament cashes. Nguyen will be looking to keep running up his stack on Day 2 and take down the second WSOP bracelet event of his career on Day 3.
Three-time bracelet winner Dutch Boyd is also up there in the counts with a stack of 151,700, with Russia's Vojtech Ruzicka (128,800) rounding out the top five.
Some of the more notable players to make Day 2 include Romain Lewis (83,300), bracelet winner Ankush Mandavia (73,600), Chance Kornuth (62,800), Jeff Gross (60,300), Alexander Lynskey (55,000), four-time bracelet winner Jeff Madsen (51,600), and six-time bracelet winner Chris Ferguson (15,500).
Some of the well-known pros that did not make it through included Georgios Sotiropoulos, Kristen Bicknell, Phil Hellmuth, Kenny Hallaert, Maria Ho, Pfizer Jordan, Chris Moorman, Ari Engel, Mohsin Charania, Joey Weissman, and Tom Hall.
The remaining runners will be returning at 12pm on Wednesday, 6 June for Day 2, and it will be a race to the money with the top 196 getting paid. The returning survivors will play a total of ten 60-minute levels before moving on to Day 3. Blinds will start at 500/1,000 with a 1,000 big blind ante and there will be a 15-minute break every two levels, with a 60-minute dinner break coming at the end of level six.
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