Kabrhel Bags Huge on Day 1 of $600 PokerNews Deepstack Championship
Day 1 of Event #62: $600 PokerNews Deepstack Championship was a huge success here at the 2024 World Series of Poker at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas. The event attracted 5,110 entrants, generating a prize pool of $2,606,100 and smashing last year's attendance of 4,303. Only 767 players managed to find a bag and advance to Day 2 after 17 levels of play, all of whom will be guaranteed at least a min-cash of $1,201.
Martin Kabrhel found himself with one of the biggest stacks in the room at the end of the night, finishing with 1,049,000 chips. That stack will be worth 105 big blinds going into Day 2. Kabrhel was under the radar for the early parts of the day but was able to climb up the counts later on by putting a ton of pressure on his opponents as the bubble approached.
Other top stacks at the end of the night include Hideki Sahashi (1,174,000), Jun Li (882,000), Choi Yun Lam (820,000) and Kevin Choi (725,000).
End of Day 1 Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hideki Sahashi | Japan | 1,174,000 | 117 |
| 2 | Martin Kabrhel | Czech Republic | 1,049,000 | 105 |
| 3 | Jun Li | China | 882,000 | 88 |
| 4 | Diogo Cardoso | Portugal | 825,000 | 83 |
| 5 | Sihao Zhang | Luxembourg | 797,000 | 80 |
| 6 | Michel Molenaar | Netherlands | 724,000 | 72 |
| 7 | Isaac Daniels | United States | 720,800 | 72 |
| 8 | Nan Min | United States | 715,000 | 72 |
| 9 | Robert Carswell | United States | 692,000 | 69 |
| 10 | Norman Michalek | United States | 680,000 | 68 |
Some notable players further down the counts include Aylar Lie (322,000), Jamie Kerstetter (269,000), Ben Yu (180,000), Loni Hui (93,000) and Benjamin Moon (80,000).
Others who were not as fortunate and fell before the end of the night include Mike Holtz, Olga Iermolcheva, Dan Heimiller, Maria Konnikova, Nick Guagenti and PokerNews' Chad Holloway.
PokerNews Deepstack Challenge qualifiers Raymond Chiu (326,000) and Michael Beattie (644,000) also made it through to the end of the night. Chiu dominated the first week of the challenge with back-to-back wins in the Daily Deepstack earlier during the series to win his seat to this event and will be a force to be reckoned with going into Day 2.
Day 2 kicks off at 11 a.m. local time Wednesday, June 26, with the blinds at 5,000/10,000 and a 10,000 big blind ante. The plan is to play ten more levels before players bag for Day 3, which will take place on June 27 and play down to the final five players. Those five players will face off on the fourth and final day to determine who will claim the bracelet, the 24-karat gold PokerNews Deepstack Championship winner's coin, plus the top prize of $283,701.
As always, stay tuned to PokerNews as we bring you all the action for this and every other event at the 2024 WSOP.