Burleson Leads Final Flight of 2020 MSPT Golden Gates $360 Regional
The field has been set for Day 2 of the 2020 Mid-States Poker Tour Golden Gates $360 Regional Event after Day 1d brought a record-setting 400 entries to the Golden Gates Casino and Poker Parlour to bring the overall total up to 1,087, a number that was both a record as well in addition to being the first ever tournament in Colorado poker history with more than 1,000 entries.
When all was said and done for the night, Rick Burleson (478,000) was atop the counts, beating his friend Alex Smith’s Day 1c count of 399,000 of whom he came with. The man from Rapid City, SD saw a rapid increase to his stack after becoming one of the last entries into the tournament. He found a couple doubles to break 100,000 before scoring a big knockout with a flush to get to near a quarter-million. A turned set of deuces that became a full house by the river cracked kings to take him over 400,000 near the beginning of the final level of the night, and he ascended from there to just shy of a half-million to take what will be a top-three stack into Sunday’s Day 2.
Day 1d was the largest field of the four and with it came even more big stacks. Bryan Wienhoff (403,000), Peter Shuldiner (394,000), Lorenzo Banuelos (387,000), and Jason Johnson (349,000) round out the top five. Just below them are two more formidable opponents in Kevin Eyster (341,000) and Schuyler Thornton (340,000), both of which also saw their stacks multiply through the final three levels of the night.
Others were not as fortunate. Ryan Dodson, Jason Vanstrom, David Blankenship, Ben Keeline, and Terry Harper were just a few players who came up the mountain Saturday after not advancing in one or more of the three earlier flights only to fall short once again.
In total, 138 players will be returning Sunday for Day 2’s noon start time. One hundred and seventeen of them will make it into the money and earn a first-level payout of $620, though players are sure to have their eyes set on the first-place prize of $59,525 that will be earned before day’s end.
PokerNews will be back on hand for the home stretch, so make sure to come back and see who reigns triumphant.