Theriot Tops 18 Survivors of Day 1a

Day 1a of the Mid-States Poker Tour Belle of Baton Rouge Main Event drew 67 runners — 12 better than the February event here — and Garrett Theriot topped the final chip counts by bagging 148,500. Rufus Yates (112,500), David Chocheles (106,000), My Nguyen (103,000), William Flippen (101,000), and Randy Landry (101,000) will also bring six-figure stacks into Sunday's Day 2.

Other notable survivors included Michael Benton (96,500), Corrie Wunstel (76,500), Robbie Matthews (61,000), Michael Horchoff (60,500), and Adam Lamphere (46,500).

Many of the most notable players to enter the field failed to make it through the day's 14 levels, such as Will "Monkey" Souther, Duma Lowery, Mike Lang, Adam Friedman, Gene Dudek, Kenny Milam, and defending champion Shawn Schoreck. These players will have another chance at MSPT glory should they choose to fire again on Day 1b.

Nguyen seemed poised to bag the chip lead after hovering near the top of the counts for much of the day. He got start off on the best foot possible when Austin Bursavich five-bet shoved on one of the first hands of the tournament, only to run his into Nguyen's .

During Level 10 (500/1,000/100), another big pot went Nguyen's way when two players were all in on an flop with Nguyen holding the . One player had two tens, and the other had the , but Nguyen's top two held up for the double knockout. Nguyen hit a late snag when his was outdrawn by Yates, who got his money in with the preflop and spiked a nine on the river for a 73,000-chip pot.

Souther had a nice early stack but declined from there, ultimately falling when a flop hit the felt and he called a short stack's eight-big blind shove with the . Souther's opponent had the , which held, leaving Souther with just 1,100. He busted a short time later, left to rue the hours he felt he wasted grinding away.

"Well, this has been a fun eight hours of my life that I'll never get back," Souther remarked.

Souther at least only bricked one bullet, which was a better day than Lang and Friedman had.

Lang tried shoving light for 12,300 during Level 6 (200/400/50) with the , only to be called by opener John Song, whose held up unimproved. Lang then sat down to on his first hand after reentering, only to flop top pair and get it in against a combo draw held by Pablo Garcia-Salas, who got there to bust the MSPT regular.

We didn't see Friedman's first bust out, but the second one came after a board during the same level, at which point Friedman got all in with for jacks up against Handri Maksudi, holding . Maksudi found a on the river to outdraw Friedman's two pair and bust him.