Kassim Panjwani Leads Day 1e of $1,500 Main Event!
Another day is in the books here at Champions Club in Houston, Texas as Day 1e of the WPO Event #15: $1,500 Main Event has come to a close. This flight produced a whopping 290 entries which means the final flight only needs 138 entries to meet the $1 million guarantee, and the final flight is expected to be 300+.
With this amount of entries, 35 players found a bag tonight, with Kassim Panjwani leading the way with a massive stack of 2,337,000- the new tournament record and almost a million more than the Ryan Van of last night who held the previous record. In second place tonight is Charles Sinn who bagged 1,870,000 and in third is Jessica Richards with 1,206,000. Rounding out the top five is Michael Moyer in fourth with 1,105,000 and Ravee Sundara in fifth with 828,000.
Day 1e Top Ten Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kassim Panjwani | 2,337,000 | 292 |
| 2 | Charles Sinn | 1,870,000 | 234 |
| 3 | Jessica Richards | 1,206,000 | 151 |
| 4 | Michael Moyer | 1,105,000 | 138 |
| 5 | Ravee Sundara | 828,000 | 104 |
| 6 | Christopher Chomenko | 742,000 | 93 |
| 7 | Tony Bunch | 742,000 | 93 |
| 8 | Kenneth Warner | 715,000 | 89 |
| 9 | Lam Tran | 642,000 | 80 |
| 10 | Chezz Romero | 536,000 | 67 |
Unlike previous flights where there were only one or two tables in the early levels, Day 1e started the day with over 50 players locked and loaded before the cards were in the air. This surge turned into a massive wave of players entering throughout the day, with the 200 mark being hit by 3:00 p.m.!
Although there was no shortage of action, it seemed to take a while before any players started pulling away from the pack. The first player to reach 300,000 was Danylo Turov when he scooped a three-way pot to bust two players, but unfortunately could not keep up the streak and wound up busting later in the day. Then along came Sinn who just ran up a 600,000 stack out of nowhere and just went on a massive heater, all while VPIPing 100%. There were times were he lost a good portion of his stack, only to get it right back plus some the very next hand. The story of how Panjwani came about his initial monster stack is still unknown, but he was seen putting a lot of pressure on players later in the night to pad his lead. Things were also starting to look grim for Richards, who had a healthy stack throughout the day but had dwindled to around 15 big blinds at one point, but the Chipleader Coaching student surged back with a vengeance and managed to bag a top-five stack.
Some players who didn't find a bag that are set to return include Drew 'Bet on Drew' Gonzalez, Will Leffingwell, Derek Normand, Kris Burchfield, Terance Perez, and defending champion Linh Dinh.
As this is the fifth of six starting flights, there is only tomorrow’s flight that remains, but it is slated to be the largest by a good margin. There will also be one last satellite at 10:00 am as well as some PLO sweats to give players last-chance opportunities to find a bankroll-friendly way into the tournament.
Day 1f fires off tomorrow at noon local time, and as always, PokerNews will be back on the scene with all of the action!