Alex Whitenstall Bags the Chip Lead After Day 1 of $1,500 Bounty
Today saw the start of Event #51: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Bounty at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino. The tournament drew 1,982 runners, which surpassed last year's 1,927 field size. The prize pool generated was $2,675,700 and on top of that, there was a bounty placed on every player's head. For each knock-out that took place, the winning player took the busted player's bounty chip, worth $500.
Play ended after the bubble had burst. Tables had been playing hand for hand for around 15 minutes and 298 made it through to Day 2. All of those have locked up at least $1,415, not taking the accumulated bounties into accord. They will have their sights on the top prize though, as whoever is the last person standing will take home $272,504 for first place, plus a coveted bracelet, plus all the bounties they're collecting along the way.
Those coming back with the largest stacks in play are Alex Whitenstall (197,800), who bagged the chip lead. There were five in total who made it into six figures after 10 hours of play, they are Ranno Sootla (171,000), Sean Getzwiller (143,000), Michael Steele (122,900) and Christian Nolte (121,900).
Some notable names will be back here again tomorrow to continue their campaign. Amongst them are Paawan Bansal (98,700), Jeff Gross (78,500), the brothers Ralph Massey (73,300) and Aaron Massey (72,300), Martin Mathis (70,400), Ivan Deyra (57,400) and Maria Konnikova (35,900).
There were also a number of familiar faces who didn't make it to the end of Day 1. Phil Hellmuth, Sean Deeb, Kristen Bicknell, Alex Foxen, Phil Laak, Chris Ferguson, Bertrand Grospellier, 888poker ambassador Chris Moorman, Mohsin Charania, Joey Weissman, Allen Kessler, Anthony Reategui, Heidi May, Ben Yu and Maria Lampropulos were among those to run out of chips, just to name a few.
There will be a total of ten 60-minute levels play, with a 20-minute break taking place at the end of every two levels and a 75-minute dinner break coming at the end of Level 6. Play will resume at noon on Tuesday, June 26, in the Orange and Tan sections of the Amazon Room.
PokerNews will be here from start to finish so come back tomorrow to get all the live updates for Day 2.