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Drake Kemper Among the Big Stacks in Largest Flight of Main Event
As it was expected, Day 1d attracted the largest field of all the starting flights in the 2026 RunGood Golden Expedition Houston $600 Main Event. With a $250,000 guaranteed prizepool up for grabs, the players turned up early on Saturday to take their shot at reaching Day 2 on championship Sunday.
A total of 138 entries were recorded throughout the registration period, leaving 17 players in the money and just 13 to advance to the finale. It was Justin Yoon who emerged as the chip leader for this flight, pocketing 1,215,000 chips in his bag after what was the longest flight thus far as well, reaching the start of level 19. Yoon has a series of tournament cashes dating back to 2021, with his largest and only victory coming two years ago for over $86,000.
He wasn't the only player to reach the seven-figure mark on Day 1d as multiple other players also reached that milestone. Shawn Murphy amassed a total of 1,140,000 chips while Drake Kemper will return to a stack of 1,055,000. Kemper has made a name for himself in the poker community over the past year with results that include final tables on the WPT, WSOP Circuit, and PokerGO high rollers.
Day 1d Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Justin Yoon | United States | 1,215,000 | 41 |
| 2 | Shawn Murphy | United States | 1,140,000 | 38 |
| 3 | Drake Kemper | United States | 1,055,000 | 35 |
| 4 | Gage Trichel | United States | 925,000 | 31 |
| 5 | Aymen Naouali | United States | 685,000 | 23 |
| 6 | Akbar Shabazz | United States | 560,000 | 19 |
| 7 | Sage Nutt | United States | 470,000 | 16 |
| 8 | Dara Taherpour | United States | 465,000 | 16 |
| 9 | Walter Lynch | United States | 450,000 | 15 |
| 10 | James Lee (TX) | United States | 415,000 | 14 |
Day 1d Action
From the moment the cards went in the air at 11 a.m. local time, the energy in the room at Champions Club Texas was at a high due to the number of players taking their seats. It didn't take long for chips to start with moving with multiple eliminations coming within the first 30 minutes.
Well over half of the field was eliminated when late registration closed and the big stacks started to emerge. Ray Henson put in a good attempt to become one of those big stacks by risking many of his starting stacks without looking at his cards. Despite finally scoring a double up, Henson fell just short of making the money in this flight.
The treacherous title of bubble boy belonged to Wess Durocher who ran his ace-king suited into the pocket aces of James Lee. That catapulted Lee into a comfortable position and he managed to survive the night with 415,000 chips. Michael Coltrane, David Soskin, Jason Torres, and Joseph Barrus all received a min-cash of $920 but were unable to put chips in a bag by the night's end.
After four flights, a total of 339 entries have been recorded for this event with 32 players advancing to Day 2 on Sunday, which begins at 2 p.m. local time. Day 1e is currently running with nearly 100 entries and Day 1f will be a turbo flight on Sunday morning before Day 2 begins. You can find the results from the last two flights in the RunGood Rewards App.
The PokerNews team will be back on the tournament floor to bring you all of the live updates from Day 2 until a winner is reached and a RGPS ring is awarded to the champion.