Matt Downs Goes Big, Bags 320,200 to Lead Final 2,030
Matt Downs ended the day with a suitably monstrous stack of 320,200 chips and will begin Day 2 as the outright leader of the two flights.
When registration closed at the beginning of level nine, the final numbers were tallied, and the prize pool was announced. With 2,676 players registered on Day 1a and 4,040 on Day 1b, the entries totaled 6,716 across both flights. The attendance generated a prize pool of $9,066,600. There will be 1,008 places paid, with a min-cash worth $2,249. The winner will get a gold bracelet and $1,094,349.
Day 1a saw 758 players survive the 10 levels of play, while Day 1b had 1,272 bag up chips. Day 2 will therefore see a combined filed of 2,030 resume play.
Some of the notables who played Day 1b and managed to make it through include Joseph McKeehen, Maurice Hawkins, Kitty Kuo, Matt Affleck, Michael Tureniec, Bruno Politano, Scott Davies and Aditya Agarwal.
Others weren’t so lucky, and among those that didn’t make it to the end and failed to bag chips were Pierre Neuville, Martin Kabrhel, Jackie Glazier, Allen Kessler, Randy Lew, and Antonio Esfandiari, who registered at the very last minute in an attempt to spin up his starting stack.
Esfandiari announced his arrival at the table by saying, “You’ve been sitting here working hard all day, and I was out goofing around.” He promptly ran jacks into a set of sevens to bust. Another very late entrant was Barny Boatman, but his opening salvo didn’t quite have the same enthusiasm, as he remarked with some surprise, “I didn’t realise the blinds would be so high.”
Play resumes Monday at the slightly later time of 11 a.m. and is scheduled to play another 10 one-hour levels as this five-day event continues its march. The PokerNews Live Reporting team will be on hand to bring you all the latest exclusive updates.
For a full Day 2 seat draw, visit WSOP.com.