Mark Castagnini Leads After Day 1 of Event #14: $1,500 H.O.R.S.E; Jean Gaspard Right Behind
The first day of Event #14: $1,500 H.O.R.S.E has come to an end at the Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino, and it is Mark Castagnini who is named the end of day chipleader.
Castagnini will be starting the second day of the tournament with 74,700 in chips. He hovered just above average for the better part of the day and it was not until after the last break that he really started to heat up. Right on the heels of Castagnini is Jean Gaspard with 72,100 in chips.
Gaspard has over $1 million in WSOP cashes, including a bracelet that he won in a $10,000 Dealers Choice 6-Handed Championship, along with an astonishing $306,621. He finds himself off to a great start here in the H.O.R.S.E. event and will be looking for bracelet number two by tournament's end.
Some other notable big stacks to proceed into the second day include Canadian Clayton Mozdzen (71,500), Chris Klodnicki (68,500), German Laurent Manderlier (65,900), and bracelet winner David "ODB" Baker (65,100).
There were also many notable players to advance including Tony Ma (60,800), Mark Gregorich (60,300), Andre Akkari (54,500), Vegas' own Rafael Concepcion (51,300), Kevin Johnson (50,500), Ashish Gupta (48,800), Kevin Gerhart (46,900), bracelet winner Matt Grapenthien (46,300), Bryce Yockey (42,200), and 12-time ring winner Valentin Vornicu (41,700).
Many familiar faces were seen coming into the tournament and many, unfortunately, leaving it before finding a bag by night's end. That list includes Brazil's, Felipe Ramos, Ben Ludlow, Andrew Brown, Sean Yu, two-time bracelet winner Brandon Cantu, Max Pescatori, Barry Greenstein, Alex Foxen, Jason Somerville, and four-time bracelet winner Jeff Madsen.
A total of 751 players walked through the doors in the hopes of bagging up and moving onto the second day, and of the night only 291 did just that. The remaining players will come back tomorrow to battle it out for a shot at the $207,003 first place prize and at least 113 will see a min-cash of $2,253.
The returning players will resume at 12 p.m. local time and will play another ten 60-minute levels before bagging up. There will be a 15-minute break after every two levels of play with a 60-minute dinner break coming at the end of level 6.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be bringing you all the live coverage throughout the remainder of this event, so stay tuned as all the action unfolds.