Gurney Gallops Into Lead

Our start-of-day chip leader, Rick Hensley, began today by eliminating an opponent on just the second hand to push all of the way up to 460,000. But he quickly began to bleed chips thereafter, and just now suffered a major hit to his stack as Level 16 comes to a close.

Again we only arrived in time to catch the counting down and redistribution of chips, but it appeared Hensley had gotten involved from early position, then Larry Gurney had woken up with in the blinds.

Subsequently we learned that the chips had gone in on the flop with Hensley holding but for a gutshot straight draw. The turn was the and river the , and Gurney's aces had held.

The hand earned Gurney a more than 340,000-chip pot — likely the biggest pot of the tournament thus far — and good enough to catapult Gurney into first position early on Day 2.