While several players remaining in the field hold stacks of over 300,000, a quick scan of the room sees Derek Bowers with the only stack above the 400,000 mark.
In a recent pot he defended his small blind versus a middle position raise and a call from the button.
The flop was checked through, but on the turn, Bowers led out for 10,000.
He got folds from his two opponents to collect the pot and extend his chip lead a bit.
Just 56 players remain at the final break of the day. When they return, just 14 more eliminations are needed to wrap the night up with 15 percent of the field remaining.
The exuberant Chad Stone, who was eliminated late in Day 1b is on the verge of advancing to Day 2 as just 6 more eliminations remain to get to the final 15 percent of the field.
In a recent pot on a flop of , Stone checked in the cutoff to Joseph Rowe who bet 21,000 into approximately 25,000.
Stone then check-raised all in for 131,000, which sent Rowe deep into the tank.
After flagging down a waitress to order another beer, Stone began talking, first asking the dealer if there was a penalty for showing his hand, then telling Rowe that he put him on two red kings and that he couldn't call.
After a couple of minutes, Rowe folded and Stone showed for a flopped set of sevens to drag the pot.
As Level 14 began for the first time on an RGPS Cleveland main event opening flight, the final elimination needed to bring the field to 42 just happened.
The players are now bagging up for the day.
Stay tuned for end of day 1c chip counts and a full recap of the day's action.
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 Stonetook 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.