Sammy Smith has a huge smile on his face and a spot up close to chip leader Michael Mizrachi after a massive hand here at Seneca Niagara.
The details are a bit sketchy, but the gist of it is that Smith flopped two pair, his opponent hit his gutshot straight draw on the turn, Smith rivered a full house and a boatload of chips went his way.
Buffalo native Justin Brocato is trying to parlay a $55 satellite into a big score here at the DeepStacks Poker Tour. It's been a wild ride for Brocato during this level. He was down to just 1.5K in chips, but has built his stack up to 60,000 as the level nears a close. With one level to go, he has a great chance to advance to Day 2.
We've entered our last level of play on Day 1 of the Western New York Poker Championship. The plan to begin the day was to play 14 levels, but the tournament staff cut a level off due to the delayed start this afternoon.
Randy Pfeifer knows his way around these DeepStacks events. Last year's Seneca Niagara DeepStacks Poker Open champion is going after another title here in the Cataract City this weekend. Our previous count for Pfeifer was at around 90,000, but he's tripled that in the past half hour. Much of that came when he flopped a straight with on a board. His opponent open shoved with ace-high for around 65,000 into a 30,000-chip pot and Pfeifer snap called. The rest is history. Pfeiffer is nearing 280,000 chips.
Deepstacks Pro Michael Mizrachi has straight up owned the Western New York Poker Championship today.
However, a swoon in the late stages here has seen him fall out of the chip lead and under the 300k mark.
The latest debacle for "The Grinder" ended when he bet 45k on an ace-high board with just a pair of nines and was snapped off by an opponent holding big slick.
Day 1 of the inaugural DeepStacks Poker Tour Western New York Poker Championship has come to a close here at the Seneca Niagara Casino. The day began with 217 hopefuls putting up $1,500 for a shot at becoming the season's first champion, and only 42 have advanced to Day 2 after a lightning-fast pace sent the majority of the field out the door.
Team DeepStacks was represented well here in Niagara Falls. Among the pros in attendance were Michael Mizrachi, Mike Matusow, Adam Levy, Randal Flowers, Karina Jett, Jay Houston and Robert Croak. Despite nice runs from Matusow, Jett and Levy, only Mizrachi survived the 13 hours of play. And oh what a day it was for "The Grinder."
Mizrachi was the undisputed top story on Day 1. The two-time bracelet winner battled with Matusow for much of the day, and finally got his man in Level 12 to make him the overwhelming chip leader. Mizrachi, Matusow and one other player went to a flop. The player in the big blind checked, Matusow bet 6,600, Mizrachi called, and the blind blind folded. On the turn, Matusow checked and Mizrachi fired 15K. Matusow paused before announcing he was all in, and Mizrachi snap-called with . Matusow's pocket aces were in trouble, and the on the river secured the pot for Mizrachi. He finished the day with the chip lead, bagging 338,500 at the end of the night.
Among those joining Mizrachi near the top of the leaderboard are Sammy Smith (303,500), Andy Spears (301,000), Kyaw Naing (282,000), and former DeepStacks Poker Open champ Randy Pfeifer (281,500). Pfeifer surged toward the top of the leaderboard near the end of the night and is closing in on his second straight final table here at a DeepStacks event in Niagara Falls.
We'll return for Day 2 at 2 p.m. local time on Saturday. Keep it locked in to PokerNews.com as we play all the way down to a final table at the Western New York Poker Championship!