Day 1 in the Books; Volpe - Veni, Vidi, Vici!
There was no doubt in anybody’s mind that today was going to be a big day here in the Pavilion Room. Given that this was the last $1,500 event on the schedule before the Main Event, there was going to be plenty of interest from everyone – whether it was your Average Joe or Joe Cada, everyone has eyes on just one prize – the gold bracelet.
Oh, and some life-changing money, let’s not forget about that.
Nevertheless, all 3,389 players faced the Herculean challenge of conquering Day 1 of this event. By the dinner break, one man bolted out in front and coasted through to the finish – Ben Volpe.
He’s bagged up a whopping 156,200 in chips, followed by David Zemel in second place with 127,700. Bryn Kenney (113,000), David Eldridge (111,800) and Tyler Patterson (109,500) round off our top five. Others to have made it through today’s massive field include Brett Jungblut (100,500), Dan Kelly (99,300), Justin Schwartz (80,500), Nick Holbrook (70,900), Gavin Smith (46,500), Eddy Sabat (56,300), Haibo Chu (55,100), Randy Lew (15,200) and Kenny Nguyen (15,000).
Of course, with only 465 players returning for Day 2, naturally, the casualty list was always going to be looooooooong. Just some of the names to have been written into the tournament obituaries were Vanessa Selbst, Humberto Brenes, Scott Montgomery, Antonio Esfandiari, Andre Akkari, Liv Boeree, Sam Trickett and Nacho Barbero.
This concludes our broadcast day! Once again, PokerNews will be back tomorrow from 2.30pm PST (GMT -7) live from the Amazon Room to bring you all the updates, but in the meantime, please stay with us as we burn the midnight oil with both the $50,000 Player’s Championship and the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better Event.
Until then, in case we don’t see you, good afternoon, good evening and goodnight!