Michael Gagliano Bags the Day 1b Chip Lead
The Main Event of the inaugural PokerStars Festival New Jersey continued on Wednesday and drew 127 players, bringing the total field size to 208 players. The total prize pool is set at $201,760, with the top 39 places being paid and first place is set at $38,220. After 10 one-hour levels on Day 1B, just 45 players bagged and will join the 25 players who survived on Day 1a.
Bagging the Day 1b chip lead was Michael Gagliano with 144,900, putting him fourth in chips of the 70 remaining players. The rest of the top five Day 1b stacks are rounded out by Dan Howe (138,900), Tyson Apostol (135,200), Team PokerStars Online's Randy Lew (130,200), and Darren Elias (118,900).
Gagliano, who won Event #2 here a few days ago, had just more than a starting stack at the dinner break, but eliminated PokerStars MindSports Ambassador Jennifer Shahade to help propel his stack. Shahade raised, Gagliano defended his big blind with 
, and after the flop was checked he turned a ten-high straight. Shahade called his turn bet, then his river shove, and she was eliminated. Gagliano had just more than 50,000 that hand and went on a heater to end the night, nearly tripling his stack from that point.
Among those who failed to punch their ticket to Day 2 include Ari Engel, Theo Tran, Jon Borenstein, "Boston" Rob Mariano, Alex Foxen, Scott Baumstein, Shankar Pillai, Nick Palma, and Team PokerStars Online's Jaime Staples.
Play resumes tomorrow at 11 a.m. where another 10 one-hour levels are scheduled to be played.