Dave Alfa Leads from Kelsall and Enright after Day 1 of the $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo with 195 Survivors; Defending Champion Benjamin Dobson Still in Contention
Day 1 of the Event #27: $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better has come to a conclusion at the 2019 World Series of Poker (WSOP) with the 460-player field reduced down to 195 survivors.
The first Stud Hi-Lo tournament of the WSOP took center stage in the orange section of the Amazon Room and as players trickled in throughout the eight levels of late registration, the 460-player field would set a prize pool of $621,000. The final 69 players will finish in the money, while the first-place prize of $142,801 and the coveted WSOP gold bracelet are the top prize players are battling for.
A mix of mixed game veterans with both cash game and tournament expertise took a seat throughout the day, but unfortunately for the likes of WSOP bracelet winners Scott Bohlman, "Miami" John Cernuto, David Singer, Michael Gathy, Barry Greenstein, Layne Flack, Shaun Deeb, Frank Kassela, Phil Hellmuth, Benny Glaser, Ben Yu, Scott Clements, and recently crowned four-time winner Eli Elezra, they were all eliminated throughout the day.
With 195 players surviving into Day 2, it is Dave Alfa at the top of the leaderboard with 87,900 chips. Alfa leads Andrew Kelsall (69,700) and Barbara Enright (68,800) in the chip counts, so has a sizeable lead to play with on Day 2. Kelsall made a late charge up the leaderboard including in one of the final hands of the day, where he made kings-full against Perry Friedman to take the chip lead. Other sizeable stacks include Greg Yohn (65,800), Anna Wroblewski (50,200), and Norman Chad (48,600).
Also surviving into Day 2 are WSOP bracelet winners Yuval Bronshtein, Lawrence Berg, Daniel Negreanu, Steve Zolotow, John Racener, Chris Ferguson, Michael Mizrachi, Yueqi Zhu, Brian Hastings, Cyndy Violette, David Prociak, and Allen Cunningham. Joining these well-known names still in contention is defending champion Benjamin Dobson who ended the day with 20,000 chips. Dobson topped the 596-player field in 2018 to capture his first WSOP gold bracelet and the $173,528 first-place prize and he will be desperate to repeat the tick in 2019.
Day 2 begins on Tuesday, June 11, at 2 p.m. PDT with the PokerNews Live Reporting Team providing continuous live updates of all the action as Event #27 plays towards the money, and then to crown the newest WSOP bracelet winner.