Day 1 Ends With Jonathan Bodden In Charge
A large crowd of 1,841 players bought into Day 1 of Event #45: $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em event on Sunday afternoon, and over the course of 11 one-hour long levels they were whittled down to a much more manageable 144.
Bagging up the most chips of the 144 survivors was Jonathan Bodden, who earlier predicted that he would win this tournament.
"Take some notes," he said to one reporter during the early levels, "because I'm going to win this tournament. Don't take any notes and you may get fired!"
Hopefully nobody will be losing their jobs, but Bodden's premonition is looking good because he ended Day 1 with a tournament-leading stack of 143,000 chips and is a key one to watch on Day 2.
Two other players had to cram a six-figure stack into their overnight chip bags; Loren Klein ended with 122,800 and Lily Kiletto 100,000.
Also nicely chipped up were David Schaerf (99,300), Ari Engel (98,700), Knut Bernsten (91,900), and Jason Helder (88,500). While established pros such as Max Pescatori (41,300), Jason Wheeler (33,000), Christian Harder (26,600), Faraz Jaka (21,100), and Pierre Neuville (7,800) also punched their ticket for Monday's Day 2.
Amazingly, the money places were reached despite almost 1,900 players starting the day. The bubble burst during Level 11 when three, possibly four, players exited during the same hand at different tables. The tournament clock was paused for 15 minutes while the tournament staff organized what had happened, and order was restored before the rest of the level played out.
Day 2 will commence at 1 p.m local time and the plan is to play 10 hour-long levels, during which time the players should get close to the final table. Each of the returning players is guaranteed to take home at least $2,037 for their effort, with the champion taking home in excess of $300,000.
Until Monday, it's goodnight from the PokerNews team, and please, enjoy the following episode of Let's Get Weird: