Dan Matsuzuki Leads, Dian Lei Zhang in Second after Day 1; Kathy Liebert Bags Big
Day 1a of Event #59: $600 No-Limit Hold'em Deepstack Championship No-Limit Hold'em has come to a close after the first 17 levels of play have wrapped up. A massive field of 6,140 players came out for the first edition of this tournament, and Dian Lei Zhang, with $183,812 in total live earnings, emerges at the end of the day among the biggest stacks. The Columbian pro Farid Jattin navigates around with a hefty stack of 603,000 as well as Turbo Nguyen with 612,000.
The story of the day was the insanely large turnout for the event. All day long the registration lines were flowing fast down the hallways of the Rio and for several hours of the day, the event had players in all four cardrooms inside the cavernous home of the World Series of Poker. This field has crushed the guaranteed $500,000 prize pool, gathering a total of $2,223,500 and it stands to become one of the largest poker tournaments of the summer. The attraction of winning a prestigious gold bracelet for a $600 buy-in pool had players storming through the doors. A massive $397,903 payday will reward the new champion as well as a Main Event seat.
Some of the notables advancing from Day 1 are Kathy Liebert with a nice stack of 440,000, the two-time bracelet winner Humberto Brenes (302,000), the winner of the 2004 Main Event Greg Raymer (225,000), Alex Foxen (204,000) Jack Salter (316,000), Chris Moorman (307,000), Kelly Minkin (151,000) and Sasha Liu (150,000). All the remaining players are now guaranteed a min-cash of $875.
A total of 919 players from the 6,140 entered made it through to Day 2 after the tournament director announced the play will continue until the bubble burst. Ryan Riess, winner of the 2013 Main Event, managed to reach the money with a short stack of 30,000. Lexy Gavin also survived with a few chips and will be back tomorrow with 47,000.
Without surprise, many familiar faces and bracelet winners took their chance in this event, and many felted throughout the day, including Calvin Anderson, Tristan Wade, Kalidou Sow, Gaelle Baumann, Mark Radoja, Daniel Heimiller, the 2017 Player of the Year Chris Ferguson, Allyn Shulman, Pete Chen, and five-time bracelet winner Allen Cunningham. Loni Harwood, the owner of five WSOP rings and two gold bracelet, busted on the last level of the day a few places before the money.
Day 2 has been scheduled for 2 p.m. tomorrow and play will resume at level 18, blinds 4,000/ 8,000 ante 8,000, with 60-minute levels. Players will have a 15-minute break every two levels.
Stay tuned on Pokernews for all the live action on Event #59: $600 No-Limit Hold'em Deepstack Championship and throughout all the World Series of Poker.
and Raymer continued for 8,000, called by his opponent. The turn brought the 
and this time Raymer check-called for 10,000. 
fell on the river and Raymer looked at his opponent's stack before announcing all in, putting his opponent at risk. The latter folded, showing 
. "I'm glad you folded!" said Raymer jokingly, revealing a 
.
after the hijack made the call. 
, giving a runner-runner straight to Phan who scooped the pot.
, giving the winning hand to Brenes.
