$570 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 13: 1,000/2,000/300 Ante
Day 1A began with 405 entries, and after 14 levels, it appears that there are 68 survivors (unofficially), with an average chip stack of 120,000 (40 big blinds) heading into Day 2.
The chipleader is Carlos Cruz (pictured below), who bagged up 309,000 (103 big blinds). In the final hour, Cruz doubled thru George Miro, who was the chipleader coming out of the last break. They saw a flop of Q-J-10, and Miro check-raised it to 25K. The turn card was a low one, and Miro shoved all in with Q-10 (two pair). Cruz called with A-Q (pair of queens, gutshot straight draw), and he needed an ace, a king, or a jack to stay alive — the river was an A. Cruz doubled up, and then added another 70,000 to his stack in the final few hands when another player went all in and Cruz looked down to find Q-Q. And that’s how Cruz finished with the chip lead.
In other news, Aaron Massey just arrived into town last night, and entered the tournament today on very little sleep. But he had more than 85,000 in chips with two hands remaining in the day, and said he was looking forward to bagging those chips and going to sleep with two days off ahead of him. But then Massey unexpectedly moved all in under the gun on the final hand of the night, and watched as the others folded — until the player on the button called without even checking his cards, apparently unhappy with his stack. Massey turned over 
, and his opponent turned over the 
and asked “Pocket eights?” But his other card was the 
. The board came 
— just enough to make the river card interesting, but Massey’s jacks held up to win the pot for him so he could finish the day with 130,500. Massey said the additional chips from that final hand would make a noticeable difference in his mood over the next two days as he waits for Day 2.
Here is an unofficial look at the end-of-Day 1 leaderboard, followed by some of the notables who survived this flight:
1. Carlos Cruz – 309,000 (103 bb)
2. Ivan Barbuto – 288,500 (96 bb)
3. Joseph Ingrassia – 286,000 (95 bb)
4. Jose Delacruz – 276,500 (92 bb)
5. George Miro – 238,000 (79 bb)
6. Francis Langer – 231,500 (77 bb)
7. Steve Pellingra – 225,500 (75 bb)
8. Conrad Lau III – 201,000 (67 bb)
Thiago Nishijima – 173,000 (58 bb)
Ryan Van Sanford – 167,000 (56 bb)
Gary Flur – 166,500 (56 bb)
David Jackson – 133,500 (45 bb)
Aaron Massey – 130,500 (44 bb)
Rachel Kranz – 121,000 (40 bb)
John Roveto – 120,000 (40 bb)
Hans Winzeler – 102,000 (34 bb)
Janine Gelb – 82,500 (28 bb)
Abbey Daniels – 81,000 (27 bb)
The survivors will return Sunday at 1:00 pm ET to play Day 2, and there will be five more starting flights over the next two days to build the field size.