Day 1a of the $1,000 Double Stack Concludes with Brian Yoon Taking the Chip Lead
It has been an exciting day here the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino where the inaugural Event #34: $1,000 Double Stack No-Limit Hold'em took place. A total of 2,387 players entered Day 1a and 537 bagged up chips to take through to Day 2. The heaviest of those bags belonged to Brian Yoon, who picked off his opponents throughout the day, accumulating an enormous chip lead with 233,600.
Other notable players with big stacks include Anthony Spinella (145,000) Kathy Liebert (135,000), Terry Schumacher (125,300), and Sergio Castelluccio (106,100). Meanwhile, former Main Event Champion Ryan Riess and bracelet winners Andrey Zaichenko, Calvin Anderson, Asi Moshe, and Michael Gagliano have all made it through.
Unfortunately, not everyone was lucky enough to find a bag tonight. Players like 2015 Main Event Champion Joe McKeehen, 888poker ambassador Natalie Hof, Bill Klein, the 2018 Little One for One Drop champion Adrian Moreno, 2018 Ladies Event champion Heidi May, Joseph Cheong, Maria Konnikova, Sorel Mizzi, Dan O'Brien, Bart Lybaert, Maria Lampropulos, Jamie Kerstetter, Nacho Barbero, Valentin Vornicu, Jackie Glazier, Matt Affleck, Georgios Sotiropoulos, and Maurice Hawkins are some that failed win their final all-ins today.
But they have another shot at making Day 2 as the second and final flight for the tournament, Day 1b, begins tomorrow at 11am local time. It will have exactly the same structure as today: ten 60-minute levels, with late registration and the unlimited reentry period lasting until the end of the break after Level 8 (9:15pm). Once Day 1b has concluded, the remaining players will merge with the Day 1a survivors for Day 2, which takes place at noon local time on Monday, June 18.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be bringing full coverage of this and every other WSOP event this summer.