91-Year-Old Ray Cuny Among the Leaders After Day 1b
Day 1b of the Hollywood Poker Open Season 4 $2,500 Championship Event drew a total of 363 entries, of which 121 made it through to Day 2. Dan Smith led the way with 243,300 in chips, but the headlines were grabbed by 91-year-old Ray Cuny.
Cuny bagged up 199,900 chips. He hails from Aurora, Illinois and qualified at his local Hollywood Casino for this event. Despite being recently diagnosed with bladder cancer, he showed excellent playing ability on Friday and bagged up one of the biggest stacks moving forward.
The second of the two starting days saw a big influx of players who qualified to the event from around the U.S., but the big pros also flocked to the M Resort Spa Casino for a shot at what looks to be a first-place prize of well over $300,000.
Players from all over the world showed up, including HPO Season 1 Championship Event winner Ana Marquez. The Spanish pro won this event for $320,189 after beating a field of 631 players, but this time around she will have to reenter before Day 2 if she wants to make another run. The winner from Season 2, Simon Deadman, reentered on Day 1b after busting once and bagged up 43,700 in chips.
Another Spanish pro, young superstar Adrian Mateos, won a World Series of Poker gold bracelet earlier in the day across town. He then showed up at the M Resort not too long after and went on to bag up 32,000 in chips.
Other top pros that survived the day included Calvin Anderson (210,200), Pierre Neuville (185,900), Roman Valerstein (145,300), David "Doc" Sands (87,500), Dan Sindelar (86,700), Barry Hutter (51,400), and Oliver Price (48,200).
With the allowance of unlimited reentries, plenty of players fired multiple times. HPO ambassador Chris Moneymaker and Lee Childs were among the ones to get knocked out, but all of those who busted can still get back into the event with reentry open until the start of Saturday's Day 2.
Play will resume at 11 a.m. local time, and PokerNews will be there from start to finish for all your HPO Season 4 Championship Event coverage.