Welcome To Day 1a of the 2021 Colorado Poker Championship $1,450 Main Event

After 20 prelims have played to their completion over two weeks' time, Bally's Black Hawk's flagship poker series, the Colorado Poker Championship (CPC) has reached the $1,450 Main Event.

Play will kick off on Thursday at noon with Day 1a, the first of three starting flights that will run through Saturday. The event is set to run over three days, with the field combining on Sunday for Day 2 to play down to the final table, which will take place Monday and declare this year's only CPC Main Event champion. The eventual winner will also be the first to claim a CPC title in over two years, with Steve Wilkie and Nate Zoller chopping the most recent August 2019 version for $60,114 apiece.

Cards will fly at noon local time with players receiving starting stacks of 30,000. Blinds begin at 100/100 with a big-blind ante in place from the start and 40-minute levels on Day 1. There will be 10-minute breaks at the completion of every three levels, or two hours of play, with a 40-minute dinner break at the conclusion of Level 9 (600/1,200/1,200) at approximately 6:20 p.m.

Unlimited re-entries are available through the dinner break, closing at the beginning of Level 10 (1,000/1,500/1,500) at approximately 7 p.m. local time. Play will conclude at the end of Level 14 (2,000/4,000/4,000) unless 12% of the field remains prior to that time. The tournament is also not a best-stack-forward event, meaning all players who find a bag at the end of the night must take that stack into Day 2 unless they wish to forfeit their chips and try again in a subsequent flight.

WSOP Main Event Seat Up for Grabs

Another highlight to the CPC is its series-long points race, which is set to award five seats to the $3,000 CPC High Roller on Wednesday, September 29 (also covered by PokerNews) to the top points finishers. Additionally, the winner of the points leader board will also earn themselves $10,000 for a World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event entry.

As of September 21, Jason Welch leads the way with a total of 350 points, with Bobby Sanoubane, Sammy Aweida, Aaron Frei, and Salim Wahdan also in prime position for High Roller seats. However, plenty of familiar faces can be found lurking in the shadows, such as Josh Saltz, Ross Lantzy, and Al Hart, and nobody's spot is truly safe as a big Main Event turnout could shake up the landscape entirely.

A look at the leader board entering Day 1a is as follows:

Place	Player	Total Points
1	Jason Welch	350
2	Bobby Sanoubane	328
3	Sammy Aweida	273
4	Aaron Frei	168
5	Salim Wahdan	168
6	Dwane Collard	160
7	Mansour Alipourfard	150
8	Andrew Stevens	148
9	Christopher Brand	140
10	Josh Saltz	138
11	Dimitriose Andrianakos	135
12	Ross Lantzy	125
13	Al Hart	123
14	Andrew Miller	123
15	Jonathan McCray	123
16	Francesco Campanile	120
17	Michael Fallis	113