Raymond Brint Holds the Chip Lead After the First Flight of the Main Event
Day 1a of the Main Event: $2,000,000 GTD NLH is through for the day after nearly eight hours of play here at The Lodge Poker Club. The first flight brought in 78 entries, which played through nine levels as planned for all Day 1 flights. 28 players bagged up for Day 2, which will resume at 2 p.m. on Sunday afternoon.
Raymond Brint ended the day as the tournament chip leader with an impressive 401,500 chips. Brint jumped to an early chip lead and stayed near the top all day long. He made an early hero call against Jeremy Bowman and later flopped trips against Cameron Mixson to accumulate some of his chips.
Just behind him are Anthony Hu and Elliot Smith with 348,000 and 264,000, respectively. Smith gathered up most of his chips when he three-bet from the small blind and was four-bet from the button by Henry Porcaro. Smith had aces and doubled through Porcaro early.
Day 1a Top 5 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Hometown | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Raymond Brint | Whitehouse, OH | 401,500 | 201 |
| 2 | Anthony Hu | Las Vegas, NV | 348,000 | 174 |
| 3 | Elliot Smith | Vancouver, CAN | 264,000 | 132 |
| 4 | Shlomi Shriki | Austin, TX | 241,500 | 122 |
| 5 | Joe Rogers | Mckinney, TX | 228,000 | 114 |
The Main Event promises to be a spectacular event, the largest prize pool for a $3,000 buy-in in Texas history. There is $2,000,000 Guaranteed up for grabs in the prize pool and plenty of flights remaining to get in on the action.
The 28 players from today's flight will move on to Day 2, on Sunday, and join all of the other advancing players from the upcoming five flights.
PokerNews will continue with coverage of Day 1b tonight and Days 1c and 1d tomorrow.
. Michael Jozoff had all of his chips in the middle. His opponent, Joshua Lien, was the effective stack at about 52,000. 
for top pair and a blocker to the straight. "That was the perfect card to bluff on...or you just had it," said Lien.
. Mixson started with a check and Brint checked behind.
and Mixson now led for about 4,500. Brint decided to call. 
, Mixson again led, this time for 8,500. Brint didn't call, instead, he raised it up to 20,000. This sent Mixson into the tank. After about a minute, he made the call only to see the bad news. 
for flopped trips and he added to his large stack.
. Porcaro revealed that he made the move with 
from the button. "I only make that move once per tournament," said Porcaro.
. The turn brought in a gutshot with the 
, but the 
. James Calderaro had position and made a bet of 30,000 into a pot of about 60,000 after action had checked to him. 
. 
. Michael Jagroo put in the check-raise from the small blind to 23,000.
for top pair. 
and action checked through. Action also checked around on the 
turn. 
for the chop.