Day 1 of Dealer's Choice Championship Concludes with Jeff Lisandro Leading 44 Survivors
Day 1 of the Event #35: $10,000 Dealer's Choice Championship from the 2019 World Series of Poker (WSOP) has come to a conclusion with the 114-player field reduced down to 44 players.
This event marked the seventh $10,000 buy-in tournament of the WSOP so far, and also the fifth Championship event of the schedule. For only the fifth consecutive year, the Dealer's Choice Championship had a place on the WSOP schedule and would test players all-round skills over a variety of flop, draw, and stud games. With 20 games to choose from, players won't just need to apply their skills to actual game play, but also to choosing what game might give them the biggest edge over their competition.
Last year saw Adam Friedman collect his second WSOP bracelet when he defeated Stuart Rutter heads-up over the 111-player field to take home the $293,275 first-place prize.
This year's installment of the Dealer's Choice Championship attracting 114 players on Day 1 with registration remaining open until the start of play on Day 2; approximately 2 p.m. (PDT) on Saturday, June 15. Unfortunately for the likes of WSOP bracelet winners David Benyamine, Brandon Shack-Harris, Steve Billirakis, Scott Clements, Chris Vitch, Jen Harman, Tom Schneider, Robert Mizrachi, John Monnette, Todd Brunson, Jesse Martin, Mike Matusow, Paul Volpe, Eli Elezra, Daniel Alaei, and Daniel Negreanu all found themselves on the rail.
With just 44 players managing to survive into Day 2, it would be six-time WSOP bracelet winner Jeff Lisandro bagging the chip lead with 347,900. Snapping at his heels are Shaun Deeb (344,400) and Phillip Hui (331,400), while Xunen Zheng (282,000) and Matt Glantz (275,700) round out the top five chip counts.
Defending champion Friedman (pictured above) finished with 123,500, while WSOP bracelet winners Chris Klodnicki, Frank Kassela, Matthew Schreiber, Ryan Hughes, Nick Schulman, Marco Johnson, Phil Galfond, Andrey Zaichenko, Bryce Yockey, Prahlad Friedman, Max Pescatori, Mike Wattel, Randy Ohel, Viacheslav Zhukov, Brian Hastings, Michael Mizrachi, and Jeremy Harkin also survived into Day 2.
Registration for Event #35 closes at the start of Day 2, and limits will be 4,000-8,000 with a starting stack of 60,000.
Day 2 is set to begin at 2 p.m. (PDT) with the PokerNews Live Reporting Team providing continuous live updates of all the Event #35 action. So stay tuned to PokerNews.com for continued coverage of this event, and every event from the 2019 World Series of Poker.