Sumit Kumar decided it was time to gamble.
Facing two all-ins with less than half the starting stack, Kumar took his chances with 7♥6♥. The 7x5x4x flop gave him top pair and a straight draw, and an 8x on the river completed his straight.
“Nobody had a pair,” Kumar said with a smile.
Registration is closed for Flight D of the Opener. This flight drew 206 players, of whom 54 are still looking to find a bag.
At last check, the blinds were at 2,000/4,000 with a 4,000 big blind ante. The average stack was at 114,000, or about 30 big blinds. Several players in the field are holding noteworthy stacks.
The second flight of the day Flight E of the $600 Opener is now underway!
Best of luck to the 73 entrants and counting competing in the early series' flagship event of the day.
Check out our interview with Dawn Lucarelli, who told PokerNews about being coached by late World Poker Tour (WPT) legend Mike Sexton and former poker pro Annie Duke, among other major Poker Boom figures.
Keep an eye out for our photographer, Joe; he has been roaming the room capturing the action. If you spot him, give him a smile and a wave!
The $600 Opener continues to draw a crowd, with Flight D putting together another impressive turnout. Players still have time to enter before registration closes.
At present, we're on Level 10 with the blinds at 1,000/2,000 with a 2,000 big blind ante. Players start with 30,000 chips in this $500,000 guaranteed No-Limit Hold'em event, which means if you sign-up now you'll begin with 15 big blinds. That's plenty of chips to spin it up and bag a stack for Day 2.
Todd Dunlop caught up with PokerNews after bagging 547,000 at the end of the Thursday's $600 Opener evening flight. "I'm doing better than when I started," he said. "Had a nice little run at the end there, so I'm feeling good going into Day 2."
Dunlop needed two bullets to get there but said he "Ended up making a nice little run, played a little more conservative at the end, hit a couple of nice big hands."
"I don't play a lot of tournaments, man, I really don't. I'm a cash game PLO player," Dunlop explained. "I'm gonna be having a PLO cash game at my house tomorrow night to practice, but then I'll be back Sunday and I gotta flip back to tournament mode. It's hard for me to be conservative and patient, waiting for spots — that's all against the PLO player's nature."
He'll share Day 2 with fellow local grinder Derek Childress, who recently took down the Borgata Opener at the Borgata Summer Poker Open, and he believes their tough home game crew gives both of them an edge. "If you can survive a Friday night at one of our house games, this is easy. It's just like practice back in high school or college — iron sharpens iron, man. Great players make for great play."
After a 10.00 am start, Flight D of the $600 NLH Opener is fully up and running, with the field now into Level 6 this Friday afternoon.
So far there's been a terrific 156 entries, and with late reg still open until the start of Level 11 that number could well grow even more.
Best of luck to everyone hitting the felt today, and let's find a bag for Day 2!
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MyStack is a free poker tool and PokerNews activates MyStack for every event it is live reporting from, regardless of that tournament's buy-in. Once you have created a free PokerNews account, you can use MyStack to update your chip counts in real time; hopefully, your stack will continue increasing throughout the event!
Congratulations to Rick Aasen, the first Potomac Summer Poker Open champion of the festival!
Aasen came out on top in Event #2: $400 TORSE, navigating a field of 75 entries before agreeing to a two-way deal at the heads-up stage. The victory sees him take home $6,620 along with the tournament trophy.
Well played to everyone who made the money, and congratulations once again to Rick on kicking off his series with a title.
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