Arieh Leads the Way After Turbulent Day 1 of Event #39: $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha
Day 1 of Event #39: $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha (8-Handed) has come to a close after a marathon 14 hour day in which 821 entries became just 58 by the end of play.
After a crazy day of chip flying action, it was none other than Josh Arieh topping the chip counts with 1,000,000 on the nose. Arieh has long been a well-known player at the WSOP and has two bracelets to his name. He started to accumulate chips late in the day as his chip pyramid just continued to rise and rise before it eventually reached the 1 million mark.
Also among the chip leaders at the end of the night was Ryan Leng who bagged 847,000. Leng has already won a bracelet during the 2021 WSOP and came mighty close to his second of the series just yesterday with a runner-up finish in the monster stack event. He did not let the sting of losing the heads up lead in the monster stack phase him as he continued his great run of form to bag a huge stack tonight.
Several other familiar faces survived the night and will advance to Day 2; including Gabriel Andrade, who bagged 645,000 after an on fire last level of play. WSOP bracelet winners; Craig Varnell who was a big stack much of the day and ended with 566,000, Dan Zack with 479,000, Tommy Le (413,000), Will Jaffe (273,000) and three-time bracelet winner Ben Yu who bagged a smaller stack of 128,000.
With so much of the field depleted by the end of the tumultuous day, there were many big names who did not advance to Day 2. Defending champion Ismael Bojang was eliminated early in the day, as was recent PLO bracelet winner Dylan Weisman. Shaun Deeb made a deep run and had a healthy stack in the last level of the night before losing a few key pots to drop low and eventually hit the rail just minutes before the end of play.
The remaining 58 players return to action tomorrow at 12 p.m. local time in the Amazon room and will plan to play down to five players, so make sure to tune back in to PokerNews tomorrow for more scintillating PLO action.