Silvestri, Prescott Finish Atop the Pack
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The first 16 levels of this Harrah's New Orleans Main Event are in the books.
When registration closed after the first break, a total of 382 players had dropped off their $1,600 to create a total prize pool in excess of a half-million dollars.
Allie Prescott enjoyed a pretty steady climb up the chip counts today, but nothing spectacular really happened until the final few levels of the night. With twice the chip average already, Prescott found pocket aces and action from an opponent with 
. All the money went in on the 
flop, and Prescott had to fade a flush draw when the 
landed on the turn. The river 
was as blank as it gets, though, and Prescott dragged a monster double to move into an enormous lead with more than 150 big blinds. At night's end, he stuffed his chip bag with 304,000 chips. That's good enough for the second overall spot behind Mario Silvestri's 371,500.
Dwyte Pilgrim was here too. And that means he has chips. Pilgrim was short-stacked very early on, but he managed a lucky triple up to get him back over his starting stack. A few levels later, he struck another triple up after getting his chips in with pocket tens against both ace-king and ace-queen. The board ran out clean, and Pilgrim moved over the century mark in chips. He bagged up 159,500 chips at the end of the day.
Silvestri, Prescott, and Pilgrim will be joined by a strong group of up-and-comers tomorrow. Michael Traylor is well on his way to qualifying for the National Championship, and he'd lock up that seat with a win here this week. Traylor is well on his way with 191,300 at night's end, and he's joined near the top of the counts by Mario Silvestri, Mike Beasley, Keith Crowder, and Matt Waxman.
Play is on hold until 2:00 P.M. tomorrow, but we've still got plenty of poker left to play. The board shows 72 players left. We'll be back here tomorrow to pick up the story, and we hope you'll join us then as we play down to a final table.
Until then, all that's left is goodnight!