Stone Leads Advancing 33 Players on Day 1a of Wisconsin State Poker Championship
A day of furious action at Mid-States Poker Tour Wisconsin State Poker Championship at Ho-Chunk Gaming Wisconsin Dells ended with 33 players out of 197 surviving the 14 40-minute levels. Will Stone bagged the heftiest stack with 292,500, but the native Wisconsinite is closely trailed by Mandy Caffee (276,000) and Brian Rudolph (252,500), with Jeff Petronack (228,000) and Zach Shelton (213,000) also finishing north of 200K.
Stone began the day with a big double through Rob Wazwaz during Level 3 (100/200). He five-bet shoved for about 18,000 after a raising war on a 
flop with 
. The bottom set had Wazwaz's 
crushed, and Stone's double was secured after a king failed to come to Wazwaz's rescue.
Later, a dream scenario unfolded for Stone during Level 12 (800/1,600/200). He found himself in a three-way all in with 
against opponents holding 
and 
. A 
flop gave Stone a sweat as the player with ace-king had picked up a gutshot, but two harmless bricks fell on the last two streets to ship him the monster pot.
Other players punching tickets to Sunday's Day 2 included Mike Mustafa (137,500), Mike Holm (136,500), tour pro Matt Alexander (133,000), Joe Ford (104,500), Kou Vang (93,500), Chad Holloway (93,000), and Ernest Garrett (84,500).
Plenty of big names dusted off a bullet or two during the course of play and will have to run it back on Saturday's Day 1b for a shot at what looks to be a big prize pool (the 197-player field is more than halfway to a venue record for the tour). Former MSPT champs Nick Jivkov, Ervin Bjerga, Blake Bohn, Matt Kirby, and Terry Ring failed to advance, as did John Hayes, Lance Harris, Nick Pupillo, Mark Kroon, Nik Stone, and Mark Hodge.
Day 1b kicks off at 4 p.m. local time on Saturday, so come back to PokerNews to see what develops.