Joe Nguyen Bags Big Chip Lead at End of Day 1a in RGPS Thunder Valley Golden Ticket $575 Main Event, $200K GTD
Joe Nguyen of Sunnyvale, California ended Day 1a of the RGPS Thunder Valley Golden Ticket $575 Main Event, $200K GTD with a massive stack of 563,000 after running hot throughout the day and eliminating multiple opponents in the process. He is joined by 17 other players who finished the day in the money and will move on to compete on Day 2 with the other Day 1 flights.
Dawson Dvorak ended the day second in chips with 366,000 and was followed by Ed Miller with 352,000. Other players who made it to the end of nearly eight hours of play include Bong Nguyen, Anubhav Jolly and Leonard Boltasiu.
Nguyen, who has $1.1 million in live tournament earnings, per HendonMob, built a chip lead early in the day and kept the momentum going up until the end of play. He took down one of the biggest pots of the day when he got it in with trip queens against a royal flush draw and filled up on the river. Not long after, he busted Yani Fangayen with a straight.
Hector Martin was sent home on the money bubble in a cooler where he flopped a set of jacks against the aces of Dawson Dvorak, and Dvorak spiked an ace on the river.
The Day 1a survivors will be joined by whoever is alive at the end of the Day 1b and Day 1c flights, which will respectively take place on Sept. 24 at 10 a.m. and Sept. 25 at the same time.
That wraps up the PokerNews live reporting team's coverage of Day 1a, but stay tuned as action picks up again tomorrow.