Chris Moneymaker Bags Big Stack on Seminole Casino Coconut Creek Day 1a

Moneymaker's Road to PSPC 2020 at the Seminole Hard Rock in South Florida saw two starting flights play out simultaneously between the Hard Rock Hollywood and Seminole Casino Coconut Creek properties. The latter, which was live reported here in the live blog, attracted 42 runners, and with 15:15 remaining in Level 14 (1,500/3,000/3,000), action halted with five players remaining.

Those five players, who will all be in the money when they return for Sunday's Day 2 at the Hard Rock Hollywood, were led by none other than 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event champ Chris Moneymaker, who bagged a big stack of 284,000.

"It feels pretty good. I didn't have to rebuy," Moneymaker said. "I got short during the rebuy period but got a good run late. Once we got down to one table I was able to build pretty well. It was a smaller field but a lot of fun. Overall it was a pretty smooth day."

Others advancing were Sheldon Gross (222,500), Mark Cannon (174,500), Ben Robinson (135,000), and Dan Wayson (24,000).

Of course, not everyone was so lucky. Among those to fire and fall in the flight were Jorge Aristizabal, David Feigenbaum, Harry Silver, Tom Gity, and Michael Goldfarb.

Those players will have the opportunity to try again on Saturday if they so choose as Flight B will get underway at 10 a.m. local time at both properties.

Speaking of which, the Hard Rock Hollywood Day 1a flight is still in action. PokerNews will bring you end-of-day chip counts from that tournament once it wraps.