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Gioia Leads 38 Day 1a Survivors, Sandness in Second
Gene Gioia bagged the top stack with 302,100 here at Mid-States Poker Tour Golden Gates Day 1a. Mark Sandness, winner of MSPT Running Aces earlier this year, trails in a distant second with 234,800. John Taitt (193,800), David Gutfreund (192,100), and Charles Anderson (161,900), also bagged top five stacks.
A total of 137 entrants were recorded today, and some notable players survived the grind: Phil Mader (86,000), Ryan Tepen (61,200), and Bryan Devonshire (38,100). Though Devonshire bagged one of the shorter stacks, he still looms as one of the more dangerous players in the tournament, as his resume includes more than $2 million in live cashes.
Gioia gained most of his stack on one of the last hands of the night. With the first four cards coming 
, Gioia bet 25,000 and got called. On the river, he put all of his red T5,000 chips in the center: 85,000. His opponent immediately called, and Gioia tabled 
. The button raised his cards high into the air and slammed 
onto the felt. Nobody else had time to catch Gioia after that, as just one more hand was played at his table.
Day 1b will commence tomorrow at 5 p.m. local time, and PokerNews will be on the scene to bring all of the live updates, so come back and see us then.