With cashes in tournaments all over the map adding up to more than $450,000 in earnings, including two ring wins on the WSOP Circuit, Travell Thomas is widely considered one of the best tournament players in the Buffalo, NY area.
The boisterous Thomas would be the first to tell you that too.
Grinding it out here in this $25,000 Guaranteed event, Thomas is off to his usually quick start having doubled up already. He ran into and managed to fill up to stack the player on his left.
Derby, NY's Jim Bucki found a strange way to triple up moments ago.
He called all in on a flop with two diamonds thinking he had the nut flush draw - only he didn't.
"I thought I had two diamonds," he said. "Only that was last hand."
However, his was the best hand up against one player with the flush draw and another holding for the gutterball. Blanks on the turn and the river kept Bucki's ace-high ahead and he tripled up to a little more than double the starting stack.
Buffalo's own Sam DeSabio picked up kings early on and managed to pick off one player bluffing three streets with a gutshot.
Since then he's picked up pot after pot on the way to building a stack three times what he started with and good enough for a spot among the early leaders.
While this second flight of Event #5 started with a little under 50 players, the board now reads double that, with 100 entries at the start of the fifth level.
Entry and re-entry is available until the start of the 13th level, meaning Day 1b is well on its way to surpassing the 113 entries Day 1a drew this morning.
![[user127999]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
into 
was the best hand up against one player with the 
flush draw and another holding 
for the gutterball. Blanks on the turn and the river kept Bucki's ace-high ahead and he tripled up to a little more than double the starting stack.
with 
board with a healthy pot already in the middle.
and needed help against Widmer's 
nut flush. Needless to say, none came.
flop.
run out.