Bowers Claims Day 1c Lead in Final Opening Flight of RGPS Cleveland Main Event
The $800 Main Event of the RunGood Poker Series Cleveland saw its largest field of the weekend on Day 1c, with 274 runners taking their shot at a share of the $491,280 prize pool and Sunday's champion scoring a six-figure payday of $100,875.
After a day of tightly contested play with no one truly staking their claim to the chip lead until late in the day, it’s Derek Bowers taking 565,000 chips into Sunday’s final day of play.
His stack will be the 2nd largest of the final 107 players that survived one of the three opening flights, with Day 1b chip leader Scott Katip and his 568,000 chips the largest stack taken forward into Day 2.
RGPS Cleveland Main Event Day 2 Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Name | Country | Flight | Chip Count | Day 2 Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Scott Katip | United States | 1b | 568,000 | 142 |
| 2 | Derek Bowers | United States | 1c | 565,000 | 141 |
| 3 | Anthony Carbone | United States | 1a | 500,000 | 125 |
| 4 | Daniel Swartz | United States | 1b | 498,000 | 124 |
| 5 | Joe Gugliotta | United States | 1a | 457,000 | 114 |
| 6 | Jesse Price | United States | 1c | 436,000 | 109 |
| 7 | Shawn Gaffney | United States | 1a | 427,000 | 106 |
| 8 | Kyle Royer | United States | 1c | 422,000 | 105 |
| 9 | Dan Henderson | United States | 1b | 420,000 | 105 |
| 10 | Taylor Howard | United States | 1b | 411,000 | 102 |
Day 1c Action
As players knew they wouldn’t have another chance to reach Day 2, play was more cautious in the late stages than in the previous flights, with the tournament reaching Level 14 for the first time and the final 15 percent of the field reached 2:17 into the level.
Plenty of notables took their shot in Day 1c, with such names as Frank Lagodich (400,000), Blake Napierala (374,000), Mark Wahba (368,000), and DJ MacKinnon (125,000) advancing, while others such as Chris Tryba, Nicholas Rigby, Katie Kopp, and Jack Corrigan weren’t as fortunate.
RGPS Cleveland Ambassador Bounty event winner “Boston” Rob Mariano did his best Phil Hellmuth impression Friday.
After max late registering at the dinner break, he arrived over a full level later in Level 11, leaving himself with just 3,500 chips after most of his stack was blinded off. He managed to quickly spin it up to nearly 20,000, but his day ended shortly after that.
A pair of Chads who busted very late in Day 1b both managed to advance as Chad Stone took down a late pot to solidify his spot with 192,000, while Chad Holloway managed to survive with a short stack of 45,000 after falling on the stone bubble Friday.
The Plan for Day 2
The final 107 players will now come back to the Jack Cleveland Casino poker room at 11:15 a.m. Sunday to play down to a winner. The top 72 players will take home at least a min-cash of $1,620.
Play will resume at the earliest finish point of the opening flights, which was Day 1a’s completion point in Level 13 with 33:27 left on the clock.
Blinds will be rolled back to 2,000/4,000 with a 4,000 big blind ante. Levels will again be 40 minutes in length with 15-minute breaks scheduled after every third level.
Stay close to PokerNews for live reporting of all the action until the first ever RunGood Poker Series Cleveland Main Event champion is crowned here at the incredible Jack Cleveland Casino.