Grafton, Engel, and Cheong Among 80 Players Who Won Their Table and Will Return for Day 2 of $1,500 Shootout
Day 1 of Event #48: $1,500 Shootout saw 800 players start the day, and at the end, only 80 players bagged a stack for tomorrow by defeating the other nine players at their table. Action will resume at 12 p.m. local time on Oct. 26, and ten tables will begin eight-handed play. Everyone who won their table today is in the money and has cashed for a minimum of $5,549. The ten players who win their tables tomorrow will come back on Wednesday, where one of them will win the WSOP gold bracelet and the $204,063 first-place prize.
The first player to win their table and make it through was Victoria Livschitz (247,000), just over five hours after play began. The day continued for seven more hours before the final heads-up match was completed, with Aurelien Debaillie (248,000) finally being declared the winner at his table to bag a stack for Day 2.
All of the returning players will have roughly the same stack, with slight differences based on chips from players who arrived late that were put into the well and out of play by dealers. Sam Grafton (247,000) defeated a table that included Robbi Lew, Kyriakos Papadopoulos, and recent bracelet winner Michael Noori to see another day, and Joseph Cheong (247,000) defeated Zachary Gruneberg in heads-up play to move on as well. Other notables to find a bag for Day 2 include Ari Engel (246,000), Gershon Distenfeld (246,000), Brian Yoon (247,000), and Renan Bruschi (247,000).
However, not everyone could find a bag by the end of the night. Some of the notables who fell short of winning their table include Michael Mizrachi, JJ Liu, Ryan Depaulo, Adam Friedman, Maria Ho, and Jeff Gross.
Day 2 starts at 12 p.m. local time on October 26 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino. The tournament will restart with blinds at 2,000/4,000/4,000.
Stay tuned for more coverage of this event and the entire 2021 World Series of Poker from the PokerNews live reporting team.