Panzica Leads After Final Six Bag Early

Poker Night in America's $1,675 Main Event, a collaboration with the Grand Poker Series at the Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas, kicked off Friday morning and saw six players bag up chips for Monday's Day 2.

Foremost among them is Sam Panzica, recent European Poker Tour Dublin €10,000 High Roller winner. He finished with 199,500 from a 30,000 starting stack, good for a small lead over Matt Glantz (183,000).

The others who made it through were Jake Daniels (160,000), Chan Pelton (142,500), David Morton (116,000), and Matt Davenport (99,000). They did so at the expense of recent PokerStars Caribbean Adventure ninth-place finisher David Eldridge, who ran up a big stack but ultimately hit a downward spiral to end the night on the outside looking in.

When the tournament was getting underway, Chilean Nick Yunis was the star of the show, playing seemingly every other pot and showing down some big hands on the way to racking up a stack of over 170,000 in Level 9 (400/800/100). However, the late arrival of Eldridge signaled the end of that hot streak for Yunis, and Eldridge was ultimately the one who busted Yunis after the final 10 players combined to one table.

That only happened after the likes of Niall Farrell, Sergio Aido, Terrance Eischens, and Ryan Van Sanford busted.

When the big clash did go down, the final board had come and Yunis bet-called for his stack with against the of Eldridge, which left the latter with 213,000 at 800/1,600/200.

However, Daniels doubled through him with against and then Pelton later won back-to-back pots against him to drop him to 69,000. A visibly frustrated Eldridge then sent the last of his stack to Panzica to wrap up the night with 24 minutes left in Level 15 (1,500/3,000/500).