Everett Lawrence bags as the top stack in Flight B. Day 2 will get underway Sunday at noon.
The starting flights of the Horseshoe Tunica $1,675 Main Event are in the books and brought together a field of 597 entries and re-entries over the course of two starting flights. At the end of the day 1 flights, a total of 104 players remained, all of which will return on Sunday at 12 p.m. local time for Day 2. Leading the pack after both flights is Scott Dobbs of Covington, Georgia who bagged up a total of 348,000 over the first 15 levels of play.
The winner of last year's event, Neil Patel, came out to play on Day 1b of the main event. Patel wasn't even able to get much traction, never moving over the 40,000 chip mark. He busted two bullets in quick fashion and did not advance past the dinner break. Because of that a new champion will be crowned for this years event. Patel was two of the 364 entrants and re-entrants who participated in Day 1b of the main event. Despite drawing out a larger field, no one was able to surpass Dobbs' impressive stack from Day 1a. The player who came the closest was Everett Lawrence. Lawrence bagged up a total of 245,000 chips, which was more than 100,000 chips short of Dobbs' end of day mark. Of the starting 364, only 66 survived to combine with the 38 players from Day 1a creating a field of 104 players heading into Day 2.
Day 1a kicked off on Friday bringing out a total of 233 entrants and re-entrants. Of those, only 38 players made it through the day. Leading that pack was Dobbs. Dobbs doesn't have many recorded live event results, and a cash in this main event would definitely be his biggest finish yet. Others to make it through Day 1a include the likes of Scott Stewart (328,000), TK Miles (267,000), Josh Lowing (222,000), Mike Cordell (189,000) and Aaron Massey (147,500). Also making it through the day was Cory Smith. He will enter Day 2 on the bottom half of the counts with a chip stack of 83,500 chips. Smith finished runner-up in this event last year for $118,149.
Several of the players who will not be joining the field for Day 2 include William "Jeter" Brock, Corey Bierria, Russ Head, Hank Sitton, Heather Alcorn, Chris Conrad, Janet Fitzgerald, Johnny Landreth, Chun Law, Lowell Kim, Denise Pratt, Michael Cooper, Michael Sander, and Bob Beck, just to name a few. But for every notable player to not make it through to Day 2, there is one who did. some of those who escaped from Day 1b with a stack to their name include Schuyler Thornton (124,000), Shaun Burnett (127,000), Hamid Izadi (51,500), Joseph Hebert (233,000), Charlie Nguyen (118,500) and Andrew Brinkley (80,000). Also making it through the day on his last leg was Vincent Moscati. Moscati fired a total of four bullets before finding any traction. In the end he bagged up a respectable 165,000 but will still have to reach 21st place to break even on his investment.
Speaking of cashing, the prizepool was also announced on Saturday night. In total, the 597 players created a total prizepool $895,000 with a min cash being worth $2,928 and a final table appearance being worth $17,444. The eventual winner of the Main Event will take home the first place prize of $188,060 and a World Series of Poker Circuit gold ring, as long with a seat in the Global Casino Championship.
Top Five Counts after Flights 1a and 1b:
1st: Scott Dobbs - 348,000
2nd: Scott Stewart - 328,000
3rd: TK Miles - 267,000
4th: Darren Martin - 264,500
5th: Everett Lawrence - 245,000
Complete Day 2 Chip Counts
Action will resume on Sunday at 12 p.m. where players will kick back off in level 16 with blinds of 1,500/3,000 and an ante of 500. Levels will shift from being 40 minutes long to being one hour long and players will play an additional 10 levels. WSOP.com will have live updates on all the action through out the day once again, so make sure to stay tuned.