Hellmuth Moves On; Damjan Radanov Bags Day 1 Chip Lead in Opening H.O.R.S.E. Event
Players were off to the races for Day 1 of Event #15: $1,500 H.O.R.S.E. that saw a total of 731 runners walk through the doors at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino. The games on tap were Limit Hold'em, Omaha Hi-Lo, Razz, Stud, and Stud Hi-Lo. With the game changing after every eight hands, players had a wide variety of poker variations to play.
Once late registration closed after eight levels of play, the prize pool information was announced. There is a total of $986,850 up for grabs with first place pocketing $202,787, in addition to the gold bracelet. There is still quite a bit of play left before the money bubble is reached with 110 places getting paid and a min-cash worth $2,254.
When the dust settled, there were just 217 players remaining at the end of ten 60-minute levels, with Damjan Radanov holding the chip lead after bagging up 98,600. Radanov, a poker player from Memphis, Tennessee, plays both no-limit hold'em and mixed game tournaments but prefers the latter. At the WSOP in 2017, Radanov cashed in three mixed game tournaments but is still looking for that elusive gold bracelet. He has over $530,000 in career tournament earnings and winning this event would mark his largest career cash.
Italy's Walter Treccarichi (77,800), and the USA's Manelic Minaya (72,300), Thomas Chung (64,700), and Connor Berkowitz (63,800) round out the top five stacks.
The day started with around 400 players and they continued to trickle in throughout the first eight levels. There were a few notable pros who found their way into a seat early on in the tournament and that list included Dzmitry Urbonavich, Dan Heimiller, Calen McNeill, and David Buch, who all ended up making early exits as well.
After the second break of the day, it was well-known grinder Brandon Shack-Harris who found his way to the top of the chip counts. Shack-Harris has two WSOP bracelets and looked determined to find his third during this event. Shack-Harris dropped off towards the end of the day, bagging 18,200. Other notables in the field with multiple bracelets included Brian Hastings, Phil Hellmuth, Barry Greenstein, Frank Kassela, John Hennigan, and even Phil Ivey made a short appearance.
Among those moving on to Day 2 are Aron Dermen (63,000), Ryan Laplante (41,800), Brian Hastings (40,800), Ismael Bojang (39,800), Scott Clements (39,800), and Phil Hellmuth (20,100).
Day 2 is scheduled to resume at 12pm, with blinds recommencing at level 11; Limit games start with 500/1,000 flop bets and big bets of 1,000/2,000; Stud games have a 300 bring in and a big blind of 1,000 with big bets of 1,000/2,000. There will be another ten levels scheduled for the day, with a winner being crowned on Day 3.
The PokerNews team will be bringing live reports during this and every other WSOP event this summer.