Levy Bags Chip Lead on Final Flight of HPT Golden Gates
The third and final starting flight of the Heartland Poker Tour Golden Gates $1,650 Main Event was the largest by a wide margin, seeing 182 entries throughout the day to bring the three-day total to 412.
When chips went into bags, 33 players remained. Of those 33, David Levy was the one atop the chip counts. Levy was one of the biggest stacks in the room for the entirety of the day, roughly doubling his stack in the first hour of play. He eclipsed 100,000 by the second break of the day and went into the dinner break after Level 9 near the top of the chip counts with just under 200,000.
Shortly after dinner, Levy won a huge pot with aces to kings to get him to 300,000. He was then seen over the last three-plus hours of the evening consistently increasing that figure, little by little until reaching a final resting point of 424,000.
Three more players finished the day with over 300,000 in chips. Michael Campbell (379,000), Slater Dean (377,000), and Danny Gonzales (306,000) will all take top 10 stacks into Sunday’s Day 2. Others to advance include Nick Pupillo (254,000), Spencer Champlin (227,000), Alex Greenblatt (184,000), Will Berry (117,000), and David Levi (105,000).
Many more were not so fortunate. Defending champion Wendy Freedman, Adrian Buckley, Will Givens, and Chris Tryba were among those to make their exits on shortly after dinner on Day 1c. Svetlana Martie and Ruth Graham also fell shy of Day 2 after the pair were eliminated in quick succession shortly before play ended for the evening.
Seventy-one players will return for Day 2 action on Sunday at 11 a.m. local time, a start that is one hour earlier than the Day 1 flights. Blinds will resume at the start of Level 16 (2,000/5,000/5,000). Day 2 levels are increased to one hour in length, with 45 of the 71 remaining players set to make it into the money, locking up at least a first-level payout of $3,297 along the way.
Come back to PokerNews to catch updates as the day unfolds.