Lam Ngo, John Stempier Lead First Two Flights of Seneca Niagara Summer Slam Event #5
The 2014 Seneca Niagara Summer Slam continued Monday with the start of Event #5, a $125 buy-in no-limit hold’em event with a $50,000 guaranteed prize pool. The special event features six separate starting flights across three days with the survivors advancing to Day 2 on Thursday to play down to a champion.
Flights A and B took place on Monday. The first flight began at 11 a.m. ET and when registration closed after eight levels a total of 100 entries were tallied. Only 18 survived the day, with Lam Ngo and his stack of 234,300 leading the way.
Ngo used a hyper-aggressive preflop style to pressure opponents all day long and will be in great shape when he returns for Day 2 on Thursday. Among those chasing him will be Alex Rivera, who finished second in chips with just over 150,000.
Rivera scooped a big pot late in the day to vault up the leaderboard. Rivera and another player saw a queen-high flop with three spades and Rivera called a bet of 10,000 with the 9♠4♠. An 8x hit the turn and Rivera’s opponent moved all in for more than 20,000 and Rivera called with his flush. He needed to fade another spade against his opponent’s A♠Qx, and the river bricked.
Some of the others advancing in the first flight were Brian Bowen (125,800), David Paluch (117,300), Tom Lewandowski (113,900), and hometown favorite Lou Tomassi (72,900). All of the players have the option of playing other flights and attempt to finish with a bigger stack, but players will only be permitted to advance with their biggest stack from one flight.
Flight B began at 6 p.m. ET and attracted a total of 140 entries. When play wrapped up after 12 levels only 28 remained with John Stempier (pictured) leading the way with 201,000.
Several others bagged 100K-plus stacks, including John DeWitt (188,000), Phil Kavanaugh (162,400), Steven Intihar (148,700), Brian O’Shei (145,400) and Jeffrey Joseph (129,600)
Event #5 will resume at 11 a.m. on Tuesday with Flight C at 6 p.m. Flight D will get underway, and the final two flights will take place on Wednesday.
Full coverage coverage of Event #5 can be found at PokerNews.com until a champion is crowned on Thursday. The flagship $600 Main Event kicks off on Friday with the first of two starting flights, with the conclusion set for Sunday.
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