Wendy Freedman Bags Commanding Chip Lead on Day 1a
The first of three starting flights at the August 2019 Colorado Poker Championship $1,100 Main Event got underway Thursday, seeing a total of 80 entries to start the weekend off with an action-packed day. Chips flew across the felt all day long with the tournament’s deep-stacked structure, and Wendy Freedman found herself with more than double the stack of her next-closest competitor upon the completion of play.
Freedman is one of 14 players to advance to Sunday’s Day 2 from the initial flight. She entered the tournament just before the first break of the day and more than doubled her stack in her first two hours of play. She saw that number steadily rise to over 200,000 throughout the evening before winning what proved to be the biggest hand of the day when she flopped a set and saw the turn and river bring a pair of jacks to give her a full house. She got a full stack in against then-chip leader Will Givens on the river, who had flopped the nut straight only to see it become second-best.
A few hands later, Freedman finished off Givens after he found himself all in in a four-bet pot preflop in a coin flip situation with pocket tens against Freedman’s ace-king. Freedman flopped a king and the rest was history as she continued her journey to her ultimate finishing total of 597,500.
Though 15 players advanced, only five finished with above-average stacks. The other four to do so besides Freedman were Al Hart (265,000), Barb Visher (224,000), Aaron Meyer (193,000), and Zach Gutierrez (187,000).
Notable players to not advance in the first heat of the tournament include Nick Pupillo, Noomis Jones, Matt Livingston, Brian Leitch and Greg Geller.
Day 1b will be played Friday at noon local time, with all entries having unlimited opportunities at finding a bag. PokerNews will be on the floor for another 14 levels of live reporting, so make sure to come back for more coverage as the tournament continues.
and Martinez checked. Givens fired 11,000 and was called by Freedman. Martinez folded, taking the pot heads up to the turn 
. Givens checked to Freedman, who bet 32,000 and was called. 
and Givens checked again. Freedman bet 80,000 and Givens check-raised all in for Freedman's effective stack of 174,900. Freedman called.
and he earned the knockout. With the pot, he now finds himself closing in on a quarter-million in chips.
was in front of him as the runout 
was finished, giving him trip aces with a queen kicker.
and the small blind fired a continuation-bet of 3,200. Kurtz called. The turn came 
and Visher checked. The big blind led out with a bet of 2,000 and Bybee called. The player to Bybee's left and the hijack both folded, bringing action back to Visher. She made the call. The turn fell 
and Visher checked. 
and Visher checked once more. The big blind fired for a third time, betting 3,500. Bybee then put in a raise to 13,000 and Visher looked at her stack of 16,800 before putting it in. The big blind folded.
for the nut flush and the dealer counted out her stack to confirm it as she patiently awaited the pot she had just won.
