Geller Bags Chip Lead Again on Day 1a of HPT Black Hawk
The Heartland Poker Tour is back in action and HPT Black Hawk $1,100 Main Event Day 1a is in the books. The first of four starting flights saw 82 entries and at the end of 15 40-minute levels, 17 advanced with Greg Geller leading the way.
Geller, who was also the chip leader of the Kick Start event by a wide margin after Day 1 built his stack steadily throughout the afternoon, reaching a stack of 85,000 at the first break. He then dropped to around 50,000 briefly before building back to a stack of 130,000 at the dinner break after Level 9.
It was in Level 12 that Geller won his biggest pot of the day when he called off his chips with an ace-high flush draw on the turn against the pocket aces of Matt Grisham and hit a spade on the river to earn a full double. From there, he avoided bad spots and chipped up with his good hands en route to reaching his peak stack of 336,000 at the end of the night.
Second in chips for the day is Carlos Lopez, who coasted throughout most of the day, accumulating his stack before winning two big pots at the end of the night with a full house and pocket aces to pocket queens to earn two knockouts on his way to bagging a stack of 313,000.
Rounding out the top five for the day are Angel Howell (219,000), Thomas Fuller (193,500), and Michael Hinde (190,000). Another notable player to advance was Chris Tryba who finished in sixth for the day, bagging a total of 166,000.
A couple of players who did not advance from the day include 2018 HPT Black Hawk Champion Mike Englert and 2018 HPT Chicago runner-up Jason Mangold.
There are three more starting flights left, with Day 1b starting Thursday at noon local time. Stay tuned to PokerNews for live reporting of the 15 levels that are on the schedule as HPT Black Hawk unfolds.