Day 1a is a Wrap
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When the cards hit the tables some nine hours ago, 188 players took to the felt to try their hands at Day 1a. Among them were five members of Team UltimateBet: Adam "Roothlus" Levy, Matt Graham, Scott Ian, "Hollywood Dave" Stann, and everyone's favorite brat, Phil Hellmuth.
Alongside the host-sponsored group were a number of other notable non-affiliated pros, including David Fox, Max Greenwood, James Honeybone, William Reynolds, and Chris Klodnicki. From the online realm, the familiar screen names of Va Shon "JulianVerse" Watkins, Brock "t soprano" Parker, Nick "FU_15" Maimone, Brandon "xblah" Riha, and Chris "DashAlert" Morrison made the trip down here for a run at a major live championship.
It would take just about 10 minutes of play to find our first elimination of the day when a twenty-something entrant ran his pocket aces into Dan Goonin and his set of queens. From that point on, the knockouts kept on coming at a steady and persistent trickle, leaving us with 111 players at the conclusion of play.
Team UB Pros Graham and Stann were among the casualties of the first flight, and they would be joined on the rail by Maimone, Klodnicki, Morrison, Reynolds, and more than 70 others by the time the clock hit zero. On the flip side of things, Gilbert Drolet, Max Greenwood, and Vinny Pahuja all find themselves near the top of the field after very successful days. Everyone's looking up at Jon Favaloro though, his stack of 88,575 chips good enough to secure the overnight chip lead.
Tomorrow will see a fresh, new batch of faces take their seats for the second Day 1 flight. The remainder of Team UB will be on hand, including Annie Duke, Michael Binger, Liv Boeree, Tiffany Michelle, and the rest of the gang.
Until then, we're signing off from Aruba. We'll see you tomorrow at high noon for Day 1b!