Sanjeev Vora and Cord Garcia Lead Day 1ij of Mystery Bounty
It was another great day of poker here at Champions Club in Houston, Texas as flights 1i and 1j of Winter Poker Open Event #4: $400 Mystery Bounty are in the books. Both flights ended a little over the eight-hour mark with players from each flight in the money and advancing to Day 2.
Leading both flights is Houston regular Sanveev Vora who bagged up 622,000 in Day 1j. Behind him is another well-known local by the name of Cord Garcia who spun up a stack in the morning flight and managed to finish with 496,000. In third for the day is Jonathan Tamayo who bagged 464,000 withJeffrey Nowling (437,000) in fourth andBen Thomas (427,000) rounding out the top five. Crazy enough, after 10 starting flights, it is STILL Derek Normand of Day 1e with the top stack of 691,000. With only the turbo flight left to go tomorrow morning, it is more than likely that he will be the chip leader going into Day 2.
Day 1ij Top Ten Stacks
| Place | Player | Chip Count | City | State |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sanjeev Vora | 622,000 | Houston | TX |
| 2 | Cord Garcia | 496,000 | ||
| 3 | Jonathan Tamayo | 464,000 | Humble | TX |
| 4 | Jeffrey Nowling | 437,000 | Houston | TX |
| 5 | Ben Thomas | 427,000 | Las Vegas | NV |
| 6 | Lam Tran | 383,000 | ||
| 7 | William Newby | 376,000 | Richmond | TX |
| 8 | Jessica Richards | 347,000 | Spring | LA |
| 9 | Kamoru Yusuf | 334,000 | Humble | TX |
| 10 | David Valden | 327,000 | San Felipe | TX |
In the morning flight, Garcia took an early lead as he had the most chips going into the first break, and true to his form, that stack fluctuated quite a bit throughout the day, but eventually managed to be on the upswing when the day finished. Day 1i took longer to reach the final 20 players than its evening counterpart, but there were zero hands on the bubble as two players busted at the same time to end the day. As for Day 1j, the bubble was reached fairly quickly but the players played roughly 45 minutes during hand-for-hand, as the short stacks just kept doubling. The player that eventually burst the bubble was Nathan Gay, who was a dominant chipleader with over 400,000 at one point, but found the exit when his pocket sevens ran into the queens of Jared Stearns.
A couple of players that fired today who failed to bag included Christopher McCauley, Drake Kemper, Mark Pertgen, and Jason Fitzpatrick. For these players, there is only one remaining turbo flight tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. for a chance to find a bag.
With 1,220 total entries so far, the prize pool is well over the $300,000 guarantee and tomorrow’s flight is just an added bonus as at least another 100 entries are expected. As always, keep a bookmark on PokerNews as we will be here every step of the way until a champion is crowned on Monday.