"amr2002417" Leads Final 39 Players in PACOOP Event #81: $300 Main Event

After nearly 27 levels of play, "amr2002417" emerged as the leader in Day 1 of Event #81: $300 Main Event with 15,487,165 in chips after navigating a field of 877 entries. By the time play was suspended, just 39 players remained. Not far behind "amr2002417" is online grinder Chris "PetCheetah101" Bilinsky, who will bring 15,189,604 with him to the virtual felt tomorrow for Day 2.

Bilinsky is a regular in PokerStars PA tournaments and has already enjoyed success online over the last couple of years, including a runner-up finish in the World Series of Poker Online Circuit Pennsylvania $215 No Limit Hold'em - Sunday Special for $12,366 and a first-place finish in a WSOPC $215 Monster Stack event for $10,190. Earlier this year, Bilinsky pocketed $11,309 for taking down a $100 buy-in PokerStars PA Sunday Special. Bilinsky will be looking to secure his biggest online score to date with a win tomorrow.

PACOOP Event #81: $300 Main Event Day 1 Top 10 Chip Counts

Place	Player	Chip Count	Big Blinds
1	"amr2002417"	15,487,165	97
2	Chris "PetCheetah101" Bilinsky	15,189,604	95
3	"5BetBill"	14,028,660	88
4	"jreid106"	13,664,137	85
5	Alex "Schwibbs1" Schwint	12,573,680	79
6	"steelcitypoker"	12,434,299	78
7	"FooK3"	10,826,690	68
8	"usmc2doc13"	10,357,491	65
9	"Mufftetus"	10,070,157	63
10	"fubadbeatbob"	9,756,279	61

Day 1 got underway with 208 entrants and that number continued to increase right up until the end of late registration before settling on 877, which brought the total prize pool to $245,560. Bilinsky got off to a hot start and claimed several eliminations along the way, including "HeaterISreal" and "Jdgambler43" after trapping with a set.

The rapid structure of the event saw players bust out in rapid fashion from the get go. Even hand-for-hand play did not last long, with "Vubcept888" bursting the money bubble soon after it began. A couple notables who were in contention but did not make the money include Andrew "and_porter" Porter and Aubrey "RiverMeDaddy" Williams, who lost a flip with pocket sevens against "NoamSayng" in the latter half of the day.

Three-time PokerStars Championship of Online Poker (COOP) winner Casey "superdonkeydave" Hatmaker was able to make the money, but was eliminated short of Day 2 after "Jdgambler43" out-flopped Hatmaker's ace-king with queen-jack.

It was a tight race for the chip lead between Bilinsky and "amr2002417" in the final few hands of the day, but "amr2002417" secured his lead after piling on the aggression against "Mufftetus" with just minutes remaining.

One other notable who earned a Day-2 berth is none other than Zach "KennytheRipper" Gruneberg, who has already scored two NACOOP titles this year. Gruneberg will return for Day 2 with a respectable 9,679,312 to play with.

The remaining 39 players will reconvene and play down to a winner on October 2 at 6:00 p.m. local time. Play will resume on level 27, which features 80,000/160,000 blinds with a 20,000 ante. Levels will continue to last 15 minutes each and the official final table will begin when nine players are left.

In other 2023 PACOOP tournaments that took place today, "JettJett19" won $5,619.04 after taking down Event #80: $100 NLHE PACOOP Marathon, "frozenn523" took down Event 82: $50 NLHE Mini Main Event for $8,165, and "despicable_you" won Event #83: $2,500 NLHE High Roller Championship after besting Andrew Porter heads-up for $44,872.52.