Sater Bags Day 1c Chip Lead at HPT Golden Gates
The third of four starting flights at HPT Golden Gates $1,100 Main Event has become one with its two predecessors after 15 levels of action. Day 1c nearly doubled the total from the first two flights combined, seeing a massive 204 entries for the day. When the dust settled, it was Jason Sater who bagged 590,000 to find himself in pole position among the 34 players to advance.
After building his stack steadily throughout the day, Sater played one major hand where he backed into a straight in a three-bet pot against Jeff Fielder and raised Fielder’s bet to 110,000. Upon being called, Sater found himself with over a half-million in his stack and he climbed further from there before play finished.
Sater finds himself second in chips among all players to have advanced to Day 2, following behind Day 1b chip leader David Berger who ended yesterday’s flight with 628,000. They are the only two people to bag stacks north of 500,000 after three flights.
Maz Keshavarzi (460,500) and Bruce Russell (419,000) round out the top three in chips for the flight with both players finding themselves above everybody else in the field besides Berger and Sater. Russell had a boisterous day, with “Bruce is on the loose” heard across the Poker Parlour throughout the day as he built his stack by way of making quads twice and getting paid both times.
Other players to bag large stacks include Eric Smidinger (348,500), Robert Brubaker (287,000), and WSOP 2019 Main Event 39th place finisher Dapo Ajayi (264,500).
Players who were not fortunate enough to advance to Day 2 in today’s heat include Nick Pupillo, Chris Moon, Ben Keeline, Danny Gonzales, and Alex Rocha, who lost a big pot at the end of the night to find himself crippled and chose to forfeit his stack and try again tomorrow rather than put crumbs into a bag for a 35-hour hiatus.
The fourth and final initial flight of the tournament begins at noon, local time on Saturday. How many players will join the 69 to have advanced through the first three flights and who will they be? Tune back in to PokerNews tomorrow to find out.