Federico Petruzzelli Bags Top Stack on Day 1 of $3,000 No-Limit Hold'em 6-Handed
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After a full ten levels of six-handed poker, Day 1 of Event #28: $3,000 No-Limit Hold'em 6-Handed has drawn the curtains. There will be 186 players returning for Day 2 tomorrow and Christian Rudolph will lead the way with 210,000 in chips, one big blind more than rising Italian star Federico Petruzzelli who came in second with 209,000.
Petruzzelli started playing poker back in 2011 but it was mostly small events in his hometown in Italy. The young Italian made his first cash at the World Series of Poker in 2016 during the Millionaire Maker Event, which proved to be coincidentally playing the final table in the background through much of today. To date, Petruzzelli has over $550,000 in career tournament earnings with his largest cash coming earlier this year for $174,714 in an EPT Monte Carlo side event.
The day began with around 200 players scattered amongst the Brasilia Room and most tables starting play with just three players. That soon changed though as more players started to file through the doors and soon, there was upwards of 500 players on the first break. Within no time, the Brasilia Room was full and the overflow section would have to be used to hold the number of players that were revolving through the entrances.
While the room was jam-packed with notable poker pros at every table, there was one person that stood out from the crowd. None other than Michael Phelps joined the field and caught the attention of most people walking by his table; he even gathered a small rail at times, waiting to get a picture with the 23-time Olympic gold medalist. Phelps' quest to add a 24th piece of gold — that of the jewellery kind — was cut short, as he struggled to stay above a starting stack and soon busted after the second break of the day.
Other familiar faces to come and go included Justin Bonomo, who has been tearing up the poker scene as of late, WSOP Main Event champions Joe Cada, Scott Blumstein, Phil Hellmuth and Chris Ferguson. Alex Foxen, Kristen Bicknell, Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier, Matt Berkey, Kenny Hallaert, Chance Kornuth, and Joseph Cheong, who all had short days at the table as well.
When late registration had ended after level eight, there were a total of 868 entries that would make up a prize pool of $2,343,600 to play for. There will be 131 places getting paid with a min-cash being worth $4,489 and the winner taking home a cool $461,798 and the coveted WSOP gold bracelet.
When the day had concluded after ten levels, there were just 186 players remaining, looking to capture a piece of that prizepool. Among those notables moving on to Day 2 include Gal Yifrach (131,100), Sergio Aido (122,800), Mike Watson (110,500), Tony Dunst (95,800), Kyle Hartree (91,500), Olivier Busquet (88,000), Manig Loeser (68,200), Greg Merson (59,200), Jason Mercier (47,100), and Ryan Riess (38,300).
It will be a fight to reach the money when the action resumes tomorrow, with another ten 60-minute levels on the schedule. The blinds will resume on level 11 at 600/1,200 with a 200 ante. The action will get underway at 12:00 p.m. local time and the PokerNews live reporting team will be on site to bring you all of the live updates.