Second Flight of the Arizona State Poker Championship Kicks off at 10:15

The second day of action is upon us here at Talking Stick Resort for the 2026 Arizona State Poker Championship. The second of four starting flights will have cards in the air at 10:15 this morning as the players attempt to punch their ticket to Monday's Day 2 for a chance at an over half-million first-place prize.

Yesterday's Day 1a saw a total of 816 entries made to add $816,000 to the prize pool, with 98 advancing to Day 2. Only three players were able to bag a seven-figure stack: Gregory Brown (1,354,000), Nicholas Julia (1,138,000), and Vinny Tran (1,050,000).

Day 1a Top Ten Chip Counts

Rank	Player	Country	Chip Count
1	Gregory Brown	United States	1,354,000
2	Nicholas Julia	United States	1,138,000
3	Vinny Tran	United States	1,050,000
4	Rashawn Curry	United States	928,000
5	Joshua Anspach	United States	917,000
6	Sara Dehghani	United States	815,000
7	Noah Perry	United States	773,000
8	Chris Nelson	United States	764,000
9	Mark Renslow	United States	744,000
10	Esther Riordan	United States	654,000

For the $1,130 buyin, players will begin the tournament with 40,000 chips at starting blinds of 100/100, with a 100 big blind ante. Levels are 40 minutes in length in each starting flight, with a 15-minute break every three levels. Play will continue until roughly 12% of the field remains, at which point the players will bag up their chips for Monday's restart, having already secured the minimum cash.

Each flight offers unlimited reentry until the start of Level 10 around 5 p.m. local time, at which point a late registration stack is worth 20 big blinds.

Day 1 Structure

Level	Blinds	Length
1	100/100	40
2	100/200	40
3	100/300	40
Break		15
4	200/400	40
5	300/600	40
6	400/800	40
Break		15
7	500/1,000	40
8	600/1,200	40
9	1,000/1,500	40
Break	End of Registration	15
10	1,000/2,000	40
11	1,500/2,500	40
12	1,500/3,000	40
Break		15
13	2,000/4,000	40
14	3,000/5,000	40
15	3,000/6,000	40
Break		15
16	4,000/8,000	40
17	5,000/10,000	40
18	6,000/12,000	40

Play concluded in Day 1a with 18:43 remaining in Level 17 with blinds of 5,000/10,000.

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