Ko Takes Chip Lead; Tice Bags Big on Day 1a of NAPT Las Vegas Main Event
After a break of 12 years, it was time for a Main Event. The PokerStars North American Poker Tour Las Vegas is being hosted by Resorts World Las Vegas, and they were more than happy to welcome 180 entries to Day 1a of the $1,650 NAPT Las Vegas Main Event. Out of those entries, 38 of them made it through to Day 2 on Thursday, November 9.
After losing a chunk of chips to go down to 8,000 chips at one point, David Dongwoo Ko made it through to Day 2 with the chip lead of 434,500 which is worth a whopping 145 big blinds on Day 2. He collected those chips with two double knockouts, one of them included Michael Rossitto and Peter Hengsakul and some gutsy bluffs when possible.
Following him in second place in the ranking is Joe Tehan who was one of Ko's bluff victims. Claiming the final place on the Day 1a podium is Landon Tice who first left PokerStars Ambassador Maria Konnikova short and then eliminated Anthony Zinno a few hours later.
Day 1a Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | David Dongwoo Ko | Canada | 434,500 | 145 |
| 2 | Joe Tehan | United States | 311,000 | 104 |
| 3 | Landon Tice | United States | 300,500 | 100 |
| 4 | Theodore Curran | United States | 295,500 | 99 |
| 5 | Matthew Hunt | United Kingdom | 269,000 | 90 |
| 6 | Peter Mugar | United States | 233,500 | 78 |
| 7 | Byung Shin | South Korea | 232,000 | 77 |
| 8 | Andrew Ostapchenko | United States | 214,000 | 71 |
| 9 | Dominic Choma | United States | 210,500 | 70 |
| 10 | Kevin McLeskey | United States | 209,500 | 70 |
Today's Action
Many familiar names came and fell. PokerStars Ambassadors Konnikova and Frankie Cucchiara unfortunately didn't make it through but David Kaye did with 57,500.
Eric Baldwin, Scott Ball, Kitty Kuo, Ryan Leng, Vanessa Kade, Arden Cho, David "ODB" Baker, Michael Wang, Dylan Linde, Tom Orpaz, Andrew Moreno, Matt Berkey, Richard Alati, and Ronnie Bardah all failed to bag at the end of the day.
Dan Shak, David Coleman, Nick Schulman, Christina Gollins, and Mike Holtz are just some of the familiar names who made it through to the next stage on Thursday.
Day 1b is going on right now. On Tuesday, November 7, Day 1c and 1d will take place at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. local time with the same exact structure as Day 1a and Day 1b. At noon local time on Thursday November 9, Day 2 will commence. The seat draw for Day 2 will be published in the morning as the redraw for all remaining players will take place after the conclusion of Day 1f.
Keep following the live updates here on PokerNews as the live reporting team will be on hand to bring you all the action from the floor.