Koray Aldemir and Jason Koon Among the Leaders After Day 1 of Event #42: $100,000 High Roller
It was a quick and action-packed opening day to Event #42: $100,000 High Roller No-Limit Hold'em, in the largest buy-in of the World Series of Poker thus far. There were a total of 52 entries that ponied up the six-figure amount but only 23 players survived through 12 levels inside the Bally's and Paris Las Vegas ballroom.
Among the leaders heading into Day 2 are none other than 2021 WSOP Main Event Champion Koray Aldemir and GGPoker ambassador Jason Koon. Both players required two bullets to build up their stack, but Aldemir finished the day with 2,390,000, while Koon bagged up 2,230,000 chips. Aldemir and Koon got off to rough starts on their first buy-in but finished strong in the last couple of levels to climb the leaderboard.
Sitting at the top of the chip counts was Masashi Oya with a healthy stack of 2,765,000. Oya ran up a stack mid-way through the day, turning over the nuts on multiple occasions. Oya eliminated the defending champion Michael Addamo earlier in the day and took out Jake Schindler later on. Aleksejs Ponakovs was the other big stack in the room with 2,490,000 on the heels of making some hero calls against Addamo.
Top 10 Chip Counts After Day 1
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Masashi Oya | Japan | 2,765,000 | 69 |
| 2nd | Aleksejs Ponakovs | Latvia | 2,490,000 | 62 |
| 3rd | Koray Aldemir | Germany | 2,390,000 | 60 |
| 4th | Ben Heath | United Kingdom | 2,275,000 | 57 |
| 5th | Jason Koon | United States | 2,230,000 | 56 |
| 6th | Gregory Jensen | United States | 2,150,000 | 54 |
| 7th | Seth Davies | United States | 1,580,000 | 40 |
| 8th | Dan Smith | United States | 1,560,000 | 39 |
| 9th | Christoph Vogelsang | Germany | 1,450,000 | 36 |
| 10th | Phil Ivey | United States | 1,410,000 | 35 |
There were just eight players in their seats when the action kicked off at 3:00 p.m., and they started out 300 big blinds deep. The field quickly grew through the opening levels with 20 players in their seats by the first break. Addamo was doing "Addamo things" and quickly ran up a 3x starting stack in the opening levels. However, that all came tumbling down as he was one of four players to blow through both bullets today. Schindler, Chris Brewer, and Andrew Lichtenberger were the others that will have no shot at the title.
There were many others that came and went throughout the day including Erik Seidel, Dario Sammartino, and Adrian Mateos who will have the opportunity to re-enter before the start of play on June 20. For anyone looking to enter before the action gets underway at 12:00 p.m. local time, they will be given a starting stack of 600,000 chips with the blinds resuming on Level 13 at 20,000/40,000 and a 40,000 big blind ante.
The schedule indicates that the field will play down to the final five players, who will then return for Day 3 and a shot at the WSOP gold bracelet. The levels will continue to be 40 minutes throughout, which will keep the action flying at a fast pace. The prize pool and payouts will be posted shortly after the action resumes on Day 2.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be back on the tournament floor to bring you all of the live updates so keep it locked here to find out who will make the final table.