One Day Down
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Ten levels of poker have come and gone here in Event #9, and Day 1 of the $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold'em event is a wrap.
A field of runners 654 strong turned up this afternoon to get this tournament under way, a slight increase over last year's turnout. And what a ridiculously stacked field we had! Defending champion JP Kelly was on hand to try and go back-to-back, but he was unable to escape the first day this time around, the victim of a particularly brutal table that he joined midway through the first level.
A whole pot load of other notables were also in the mix very briefly at the start of the day. Joe Sebok, Annette Obrestad, Jeff Madsen, Lacey Jones, Chris Ferguson, Antonio Esfandiari, Joe Cada, Lex Veldhuis, Jon Aguiar, Gavin Griffin -- those are just a few of the familiar faces who couldn't even escape the first half of their opening session. The full list of bust-outs is too long to discuss here, so we'll tell you who is still alive heading into tomorrow's moving day instead.
James "Flushy" Dempsey had himself one whale of a day, and he is going to lead the pack into Day 2. His finishing count of 205,900 is quite impressive, but it hasn't put him all the way in the clear just yet. Scott Montgomery was in and out of the chip lead for the balance of the night, and another late surge put him all the way up to 193,000 at day's end, he and Flushy setting the pace for the rest of the field. Jim Lewis (154,400) is another name you'll be hearing from tomorrow, and JJ Liu is also right up there with the big boys after a few late pots were pushed into her corner.
Apart from the big stacks, we're still blessed with a strong contingent of notable names in the remaining field. Joe Serock is hanging around after an up-and-down day, and Tom Schneider, Jason Potter, and Christian Harder are all fighting to put themselves in a position to make a deep run. Jonathan Little, Todd Terry, Steve O'Dwyer, and Melissa Hayden are also still in contention to win this thing, though they'll have significant work to do tomorrow.
By the time the chip bags came out, 90% of the field had already been dispatched of. Just 65 players survived this bloodbath of an opening day, and there's only room for 63 of them on the payout sheet. That means two unlucky souls will wake up tomorrow and come to the Amazon for just a few unhappy minutes of poker, only to leave with the proverbial wooden spoon for their efforts.
We'll be here at 2:30 p.m sharp, and we'll be set to bring you all of the action from the bubble and beyond as the charge to the final table heats up.