Sampson Leads Final 17 into Day 3 of RunGood Million Dollar Main
Another full day is in the books here in the RunGood CheckPoint: The Last Kilometer Million Dollar Main Event here at the wonderful Thunder Valley Casino Resort. On Day 2, 124 remaining players came back out of the 477 total entries, but now only 17 finalists remain in contention for the title.
Dominating the pack is Paul Sampson who entered the day as the chip leader, and he sure finished the day out in style by bagging 3,600,000 in chips, which is over a million more than Darren Rabinowitz in second place with 2,315,000.
Sampson just kept the pressure up all day long and even though several players were tied with him at one point, like Phatseluck Yang, he was the one who made a statement on the day and will return for Day 3 tomorrow with a lot of momentum. Rabinowitz caught some heat towards the end of the night and scored a nice pot when he eliminated Jared Jaffee in 19th place.
Day 3 Restart Top 5 Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Paul Sampson | 3,600,000 | 144 |
| 2 | Darren Rabinowitz | 2,315,000 | 93 |
| 3 | Alexander Rodriguez | 1,870,000 | 75 |
| 4 | Shijia Liu | 1,660,000 | 66 |
| 5 | Anubhav Jolly | 1,510,000 | 60 |
Among those who managed to avoid Sampson the Steamroller to also advance to Day 3 is last year’s runner-up Tyler Patterson who bagged 640,000 and is hungry for another chance at a first-place finish.
Plenty of big names made the money but were unable to advance including Stephen Song(39rd - $4,840), Jeff Platt (26th-$6,695), Jaffee (19th-$9,460), Ben Ludlow (21st-$9,460), and Ethan Yau (31st-$5,565). Yau had built a large stack very quickly and took down several large pots, including one where he held pocket jacks and managed to bust Allen Kessler with pocket kings by spiking a set of jacks on the turn to send him to the rail. Unfortunately, his aggressive play style caught up to him and he was eliminated himself after losing a sequence of big pots.
The Champion Will be Crowned Tuesday
The majority of the largest prize pool in RunGood history ($1,064,187) will be handed out on Monday with the winner collecting a massive $200,422.
Each of the remaining 17 players will take home at least $11,205, but they’ll all have their eyes on that six-figure first prize, the RunGood CheckPoint Series ring, and a free entry into the DreamSeat invitational at the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas.
Play will resume at 11 a.m. local time with Level 21, which will see blinds of 15,000/25,000 and a 25,000 big blind ante and will continue until one player is left standing.
Keep it right here with PokerNews for complete live reporting coverage until the champion is crowned here at the beautiful Thunder Valley Casino Resort.