Friday Night Recap: Blum and Sutherland Win, Rios Leads Event 7

Event 7 ($560 No-Limit Hold’em)

Two more starting flights (Days 1C and 1D) were played, bringing the total amount of entries up to 1,866. Only 410 of them have made it through for Day 2 on Sunday. The $1 million guarantee will be reached when the field hits 2,000 entries and when all is said and done, more than 3,000 entries are expected. The overall chip leader is Pedro “Pete” Rios, who led the way in the Day 1D session and is the only player above the 400,000 mark.

Here are the top five overall chip counts:

1. Pedro “Pete” Rios – 453,500
2. Howard Mash – 398,400
3. Darrin Rabinowitz – 344,400
4. Luis Guarda – 317,700
5. Andrew Stern – 313,800

Event 8 ($240 Omaha 8 or Better)

From the starting field of 105 players, 18 advanced to Day 2 on Friday. Cory Blum and Aaron Salamon were the last two standing and agreed to an even chop.

Here are the final results:

1st: Cory Blum – $5,458
2nd: Aaron Salamon – $5,458
3rd: Zhen Cai – $2,625
4th: Robert Leff – $1,785
5th: Daniel Genachte – $1,418
6th: Robert Wachtel – $1,103
7th: Jonathan Gallin – $893
8th: Marla Crumpler – $683
9th: Ronald Brooks – $473
10th: Debbie Mitchell – $368
11th: Daniel Yanofski – $368
12th: Thomas Nasuti – $368

Event 9 ($150 No-Limit Hold’em w/ Bounties)

Event 9 ($150 No-Limit Hold’em w/ Bounties) drew a field of 159 players. From the $150 buy-in, $70 went into the main prizepool while $50 went into the bounty prizepool. The top 15 places were paid with first place set at $3,559 and a min-cash paying $156.

When the field was down to four, the remaining players agreed to an even chop which paid each $1,968. It was ruled that the remainder of the level would be played, and the final standings would be determined by chip counts at the end of the level. With Lester Goldsmith’s elimination in fourth place, James Sutherland held more than half the chips in play. From there, Sutherland sat back while Ramy Boctor and David Suraci played several big pots against each other.
When time ran out, Sutherland still had just more than half the chips with 478,000 of the 954,000 in play. Suraci scored a double-up through Boctor on the last hand to secure second place.

Here are the final results:

1st: James Sutherland – $1,968
2nd: David Suraci – $1,968
3rd: Ramy Boctor – $1,968
4th: Lester Goldsmith – $1,968
5th: Stephen Christy – $707
6th: Gerald Mitchell – $551
7th: Christopher Lewis – $434
8th: Raul Robles – $323
9th: Muneer Ahmed – $223
10th: Steven Kleisath – $184
11th: Conrad Lau – $184
12th: James Padula – $184
13th: Christopher Carey – $156
14th: Joshua Che Elrich – $156
15th: Regina Hampton – $156