Gioia Leads 38 Day 1a Survivors, Sandness in Second

Gene Gioia bagged the top stack with 302,100 here at Mid-States Poker Tour Golden Gates Day 1a. Mark Sandness, winner of MSPT Running Aces earlier this year, trails in a distant second with 234,800. John Taitt (193,800), David Gutfreund (192,100), and Charles Anderson (161,900), also bagged top five stacks.

A total of 137 entrants were recorded today, and some notable players survived the grind: Phil Mader (86,000), Ryan Tepen (61,200), and Bryan Devonshire (38,100). Though Devonshire bagged one of the shorter stacks, he still looms as one of the more dangerous players in the tournament, as his resume includes more than $2 million in live cashes.

Gioia gained most of his stack on one of the last hands of the night. With the first four cards coming , Gioia bet 25,000 and got called. On the river, he put all of his red T5,000 chips in the center: 85,000. His opponent immediately called, and Gioia tabled . The button raised his cards high into the air and slammed onto the felt. Nobody else had time to catch Gioia after that, as just one more hand was played at his table.

Day 1b will commence tomorrow at 5 p.m. local time, and PokerNews will be on the scene to bring all of the live updates, so come back and see us then.

Player	Chips	Progress
Gene Gioia	302,100 302,100	302,100
Mark Sandness	234,800 19,800	19,800
John Taitt	193,800 193,800	193,800
David Gutfreund	192,100 11,600	11,600
Charles Anderson	161,900 161,900	161,900
Michael Del Toro	154,100 4,100	4,100
Eric Loehr	118,300 118,300	118,300
Adam Wilber	114,600 114,600	114,600
Martin Tingelhoff	113,000 113,000	113,000
Daniel Colpoys	109,500 109,500	109,500
Darren Hicks	102,200 102,200	102,200
Herbert Burkhalter JR	101,800 101,800	101,800
Stephen Le Peau	92,400 92,400	92,400
Daniel Dreyfuss	89,900 89,900	89,900
Bradly Zotti	88,400 88,400	88,400
Phil Mader	86,000 -49,000	-49,000
Kenneth Lechel	79,500
Craig Varnell	76,800 76,800	76,800

Suetlana Martie	73,400 73,400	73,400
Aaron Gardner	71,400 71,400	71,400
Michael Kelley	64,700 64,700	64,700
Daniel Weiss	63,000 63,000	63,000
James Hansen	62,800 62,800	62,800
Ryan Tepen	61,200 -24,500	-24,500
Lawrence Brookes	60,500 60,500	60,500
Darek Spring	59,200 59,200	59,200
Matthew Cervantes	56,200 56,200	56,200
Andrew Smolen JR	55,400 55,400	55,400
David Wray	49,500 49,500	49,500
Robert Skutelsky	45,900 45,900	45,900
Anthony Karahalios	44,400 44,400	44,400
Robert Kononen	40,100 40,100	40,100
Thao Thiem	40,000 -52,000	-52,000
Bryan Devonshire	38,100 -61,900	-61,900
Michael Harris	32,600 32,600	32,600
Nicolas Vaca-Rondon	32,400 32,400	32,400
Philip Bujorian	29,700 29,700	29,700