Livingston Tops Balanced Day 1b Standings
A strong turnout showed up for Mid-States Poker Tour Golden Gates Day 1b, with 180 runners pushing the two-day total to 306 with still one more flight left. Thirty-seven of those bagged up, and Matt Livingston managed to amass 316,000 to hold a slim lead at the end of the night over Corey Zedo, who finished with 310,000. Livingston has some solid results with more that $242,000 in live cashes, including a big score in this summer's Millionaire Maker at the World Series of Poker worth $79,582 for 14th place.
The final chip distribution ended up much more even than Day 1a, when Blake Bohn and Alex Greenblatt bagged vast leads over the competition. Others near the top of the counts included Eric Maier (278,000), Ben Keeline (274,500), bracelet winner John Beauprez (251,500), and Michael Lech (232,000). Feared pro Kevin "1sickdisease" Eyster (161,500), two-time MSPT champ Jason Zarlenga (150,000), Steve Anderson (120,000), Mike Ross (107,000), and former Main Event runner-up Paul Wasicka (86,500) also survived the 15 levels.
Livingston tallied a stack of around 200,000 during Level 11 (600/1,200/200), which put him in contention for the lead. A few levels later, he had run it up to over 300,000, and he sailed to the finish without much variance either way, it seemed.
Beauprez jumped into contention for the lead late in Level 13 (1,000/2,000/300), when Zarlenga opened for 4,200 in early position and was called by Noomis Jones in the small blind. Big blind Beauprez made it about 13,000 to go, and both opponents called. The flop brought 
, and Jones checked. Beauprez continuation-bet 18,000, getting a fold from Zarlenga. Jones was stickier though, and put in a raise of 25,000 more. Beauprez thought only briefly before moving all in, and Jones called for 60,100 more.
Beauprez: 
Jones: 
It was the worst-case flop for Jones, and he found no king on the last two streets as two tens fell.
As for Zarlenga, he grinded a short stack like a trooper for most of the day, as seemingly every big pot we noted him in involved a raise and maybe a call before Zarlenga jammed it in and won the money without a showdown. Finally, with just minutes on the clock before the end of the night, he had to turn a hand over when he shoved for about 10 big blinds over a late position open from Beauprez and was called. Zarlenga did have the best of it with 
against 
, and his hand held.
Wasicka had an up-and-down Day 1b, busting an early bullet when Phil Mader trapped him on a flop of 
, getting all in with 
against Wasicka's 
and holding. Wasicka got things going on his second try, running his stack up to about 200,000 after dragging a huge three-way all in after a 
flop. Wasicka had flopped a set with 
and got his money in way ahead against Anderson's 
and a short stack holding 
. Late in the night, however, Wasicka ran 
into 
and lost about half of his stack.
Mader, Allen "Chainsaw" Kessler, Brady Bullard, Kris Wagner, Will Givens, Adam Friedman, Adam Lamphere, Phanora Prom, John Holley, Josh Reichard, Chris Tryba, Jeff Bryan, and Danny Ray Gonzales were among the notables taking shots and missing today. Their final chance to qualify for Sunday's Day 2 will be Day 1c on Saturday, which will commence at noon local time.