On a heads up turn of Michael G. Brown led out for 16,000 but was instantly raised by the late position player to 80,000.
After a couple seconds, Brown made the call and the two players saw the river.
Brown then bet out 40,000, which covered his opponent and after shaking his head and talking aloud, he threw his chips in the middle.
Brown then showed for a rivered king-high flush while his opponent showed for a flopped set of nines. Brown was awarded the pot while his opponent was eliminated.
Day 1 of Event #79: $1,979 Poker Hall Of Fame Bounty No-Limit Hold’em has ended. The tournament drew 865 entries to create a prizepool of $1,495,363. At the end of the night, just 139 of those entries remained.
The unique format of this tournament with bounties for each Poker Hall of Famer created the dynamic of players aiming for the large bounties that covered the buy in.
At the end of the night, just two Hall of Famers remained, Barry Greenstein, who had a large stack about midway through the day and was able to finish with 327,000 and Barbara Enright, who stayed steady throughout the day and ended with 224,000.
Several of the Hall of Famers bit the dust to give their bounty to a player in the field.
Event #76: $1,979 Poker Hall of Fame Bounty Top 10 Chip Counts
Place
Player
Country
Chips
Big Blinds
1
Shaun Deeb
United States
574,000
96
2
Marsel Backa
United States
510,000
85
3
Kfir Litman
United States
503,000
84
4
Shane Rose
United States
483,000
81
5
Michael Brown
United States
467,000
78
6
Joseph DiPascale
United States
444,600
74
7
David Lappin
Ireland
430,000
72
8
Noah Bronstein
United States
417,000
70
9
Bradley Gelbwaks
United States
409,000
68
10
Daniel Weinman
United States
370,000
62
Chris Moneymaker was one of the first to go as Lawrence “Larry” Greenberg ended up taking him out and scoring the $2,019 prize. Bill Stonehouse then gathered the $2,002 bounty amount of Johnny Chan shortly after.
James Crowshaw eliminated Jack McClelland and won his $2,014 bounty and pledged to donate the bounty to McClelland’s charity.
Justin Zaki finished off the short stack of Berry Johnston to collect $2,004 after Johnston‘s two pair was counterfeited on the river to bust.
Later in the night, two of the most well-known hall of famers lost their stacks. Daniel Negreanu was taken out by George Rotariu who won the $2,014 bounty and shortly after that Georgios Sotiropoulos eliminated Phil Hellmuth to win $2,007.
Outside of the bounty action, a potential future poker Hall of Famer, Shaun Deeb was able to bag what appeared to be the chip lead as he gathered in a massive stack of 574,000. Daniel Weinman also bagged large with 370,000 as he looks to keep his WSOP Player of the Year chase alive.
Several other big names advanced to Day 2, including David Lappin (430,000), Yuri Dzivielevski (211,000) and Anthony Zinno (154,000)
The money bubble was not reached as the top 130 will be paid so it will hit early on Day 2, which gets underway at 2 p.m. local time on July 11 in the Bally’s Gold section.
PokerNews will pick up coverage then and take you through to the conclusion of the tournament.