Juan Pardo Leads Day 1a of First-Ever WSOP Super Main Event; Shaun Deeb Close Behind
A week into World Series of Poker (WSOP) Paradise and the first-ever Event #9: $25,000 WSOP Super Main Event is finally upon us. The long-anticipated $50 million guaranteed Super Main Event kicked off today and drew 459 runners looking for a piece of the biggest guarantee in poker history.
Spain's Juan Pardo bagged the chip lead in the first starting flight ahead of big stacks including Jonathan Jaffee, Team Lucky's Shaun Deeb and one of the newest high-stakes crushers in Kayhan Mokri.
Also among the 155 players who bagged on Day 1a include Poker Hall of Famer Daniel Negreanu, Isaac Haxton, Maria Ho, Mustapha Kanit, Dan Shak, Rania Nasreddine and Aleksejs Ponakovs.
Super Millions Main Event Day 1a Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Juan Pardo | Spain | 4,585,000 | 183 |
| 2 | Jonathan Jaffe | United States | 4,390,000 | 176 |
| 3 | Shaun Deeb | United States | 3,960,000 | 158 |
| 4 | Kayhan Mokri | Norway | 3,805,000 | 152 |
| 5 | Igor Picone | Belgium | 3,520,000 | 141 |
| 6 | Keith Lehr | United States | 3,435,000 | 137 |
| 7 | Chris Brewer | United States | 3,345,000 | 134 |
| 8 | Matthias Eibinger | Austria | 3,285,000 | 131 |
| 9 | Stefan Fabian | United Kingdom | 3,245,000 | 130 |
| 10 | Frank Brannan | United States | 3,165,000 | 127 |
Super Main Event Action
Day 1a kicked off with an iconic "Shuffle up and deal" announcement from WSOP's Ty Stewart and tennis legend Boris Becker. After that, chips flew as some players built stacks and others were sent to the rail. Some early eliminations included Ana Marquez, Karolis Sereika and Sosia Jiang, who is fresh off an eighth-place finish in the Triton Million but ran worse in this event as she flopped middle against the top set of Yoav Schverd.
Players who built their stacks included high-stakes cash star Alan Keating, who could be seen sporting a blue watch retailing at over $300,000 and France's Jean-Noel Thorel, who lit up the table both literally and figuratively with his warm presence and bright LED tube light displayed on the table.
The field also included Kristen Foxen, who missed a few hands as she watched her husband Alex Foxen win his third bracelet in the Triton Main Event. It's been a good week to be a Foxen as Kristen was formally inducted into the Women in Poker Hall of Fame yesterday and Alex finished sixth in the Triton million for $2,795,000 three days ago.
Just weeks ago, Kristen Foxen bragged to PokerNews that she had more bracelets than her husband. Alex Foxen is one bracelet closer to catching the five-time bracelet winner.
There are still three more flights to take place in the Super Millions Main Event before Day 2 on Dec. 16. Tomorrow's Day 1b and succeeding starting flights will follow a similar structure with 60-minute levels and starting stacks of 500,000.
Stay tuned as the PokerNews live reporting team will be back on-site tomorrow for continued coverage of the first-ever Super Millions Main Event here at Atlantis in the Bahamas. Check out the live reporting portal for coverage of other tournaments in the meantime.