Conor Beresford Bags Biggest on Day 1a in Event #50: Monster Stack - $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em; Alex Foxen in Contention
The first flight saw a total of 2,428 show up to play eleven levels on Day 1a of Event #50: Monster Stack - $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em in the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino. Leading the way is Conor Beresford of the United Kingdom with an impressive 724,000 chip stack.
Beresford steadily built a stack throughout the day and seemed to always be stacking chips. The United Kingdom native has 14 cashes for almost $150,000. He is known as an online pro and will be looking to add his first WSOP six-figure cash to his resume.
The person right on the tail of the chip leader Amnon Filippi with 645,000. Filippi sat relatively unnoticed for the better part of the day but found himself finishing among the leaders. Dmitry Yurasov is another player sitting near the top, having 365,000. Yurasov is a bracelet winner who has over $3 million in cashes and knows exactly how to approach the second day of this massive field tournament.
Some other well-known pros to find a bag by the end of the night include Schuyler Thornton (288,600), Daniel Park (202,200), Valentin Vornicu 200,000, Alex Foxen (170,700), Saya Ono (157,500), Harry Arutyunyan (140,300), Natalie Teh (122,400), Ali Imsirovic (113,900), Alexandru Papazian (54,500), and Mikhail Semin (28,300).
A lot of poker players took a shot today, unfortunately, not all could make it through when the last chance saloon had closed for business and some who failed to make it include Sam Cosby, 14-place finisher in last years Monster Stack Colin McHugh, Josh Reichard, Chris Hunichen, Robert Cheung, newly acquired bracelet owner Stephen Song, Jamie Gold, Upeshka De Silva, Preston Lee, and five-time bracelet winner Allen Cunningham.
A second flight will be starting Saturday at 10 a.m. and will combine with the 1,015 today that made it through. The prize pool and payouts will be posted as soon as late registration closes on Day 1b. The restart for Day 2 and 3 will be at 11 a.m. with the rest of the days beginning at noon.
The two flights will combine on Sunday, June 23, to play ten 60-minute levels and will begin with the blinds at 1,000/2,000 with a 2,000 big blind ante. There will be a break after every two levels of play and a 60-minute dinner break after six levels of play. All that remaining at that time will bag up and return the next day for another ten levels of play.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be bringing you all the live coverage throughout the remainder of this event, so stay tuned as all the action unfolds.