Day 1a of the $800 Main Event is in the books here at 2025 RGPS Mission Rungood Council Bluffs. A total of 142 hopefuls made their way to Horseshoe Council Bluffs with the goal of finding a bag.
However, at the end of the night just 17 players advanced to Day 2 and will be in the money. It took 21 hands of hand-for-hand before Mark Fink was finally eliminated to end the night.
Ending the day atop the chip counts is Topeka, Kansas’s Thomas Houston. He accumulated many of his chips during the prolonged bubble and ended up finding a bag of 484,000.
End of Day 1a Top Ten Chip Counts
| Place | Name | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thomas Houston | 484,000 |
| 2 | Kelly Cortum | 463,000 |
| 3 | Brad Cohen | 360,000 |
| 4 | Phia Xiong | 351,000 |
| 5 | Kurt Wildin | 345,000 |
| 6 | Michael Estes (ND) | 343,000 |
| 7 | Brantley Grace | 306,000 |
| 8 | Cody Dneges | 276,000 |
| 9 | Walt Lustgraaf | 271,000 |
| 10 | Jordan Nelle | 230,000 |
Many notable players came out for Day 1a but were unable to find a bag, including WSOP bracelet winner Mo Nuwwarah, defending champion Abbas Pasha, RunGood Ambassadors Taylor Howard and Corey Paggeot, and accomplished area players Mike Vanier and Nick Barksdale.
The 142 runners in today’s flight brought the prize pool to an impressive $99,400 after just one flight, almost surpassing the $100,000 already.
There are still two more starting flights to come tomorrow. Day 1b kicks off at 12 p.m. local time while Day 1c starts at 6 p.m. Both flights follow the same structure as today with 30,000 starting chips and 30 minute levels through Level 8 and 40 minutes Level 9 onward, with 12.5% of the field advancing to Sunday’s Day 2.
Stay tuned to PokerNews as we bring you all the updates and action here at RGPS Council Bluffs.
