The Mid-Stakes Poker Tour drew another 219 entries to the Meskwaki Bingo Casino Hotel in Tama, Iowa, today for the second of two starting flights in the $300,000 guaranteed MSPT Meskwaki Main Event.
Added to the 191 from Day 1a, the total number of entries oddly reached 410 - Precisely the same number this same event drew back in July of this year.
What that means is a $410,000 prize pool was created that will pay the top 45 players with a min-cash worth $1,981 and $101,229 reserved for the winner.
Through 14 levels of play on Day 1b, just 40 players survived with Janesville, Wisconsin's Brett Reichard bagging the overnight chip lead on 251,000.
Reichard, who has four cashes on the MSPT this year, including a tenth-place finish here this past March, moved into contention late in Level 5 turning a straight against an opponent who had flopped top set.
He fell from grace in Level 12 getting pocket kings outflopped, but got all that back and more when he got it in with aces over kings a little later. Finally, the lead was cemented when he flopped a set of queens and rivered a boat in a three-way pot with one player all in and the other willing to at least give some action before tank-folding a set of his own on the turn.
Other notables pushing through included MSPT Player of the Year contenders Peixin Liu and Mark Hodge, and two-time MSPT Main Event runner up Mike Lang, although none can claim a truly contending stack just yet.
Day 1a leader Marty Faldet will bring the biggest stack into play with 317,000 in chips when play resumes at 11 a.m. local time Sunday.
Of course, the PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be on hand for all the action as the 77 players starting the day will play down to a champion and you can follow along right here.
Des Moines, Iowa local Brian Gonder appears to be having the kind of day poker players usually only dream of. Even when he folds, he winds up with what would have been the winning hand.
Gonder's found big slick three or four times already, making top pair once and getting all of one overeager player's chips when he put them in with a flush draw that never materialized.
"I've had a lucky two pair a couple times as well," he said. "I'm hitting everything and everybody wants to call. I'm just taking chips from the gamblers."
He's now on 80,000, in the lead, and praying to the poker gods this hot streak continues.
Chicago, Illinois' George Dietz has emerged as the chip leader here at MSPT Meskwaki, heading into the first break of the day.
He joined Lenard Adams in calling an early position preflop raise. The flop fell and after the raiser checked and Adams bet, Dietz slid in a raise.
The original raise then shipped it in with the nut-flush draw, Adams over-shoved with the queen-high flush draw, and Dietz called all in with the , holding top pair and a king-high flush draw.
"Turned out all I had was spade blockers," Dietz said. But those blockers helped, as no spade came and Dietz' pair of kings held, sending him into the chip lead, the original raiser home, and Adams back down to where he started the day.
Chicago, Illinois' Lenard Adams has taken the Level 1 chip lead after busting a player at his table.
"I want the world to know, I got it in bad, but with potential," he said.
The situation was this: Adams called a 300 chip preflop bet with . The flop came and when his opponent led for 600, Lenard bumped it to 1,400. His opponent pushed in and Adams called it off with middle pair.
The get it in bad part surrounded the fact Adams' oppenent held . The potential lie in the gut shot.
The pot and the Level 1 chip lead was pushed his way when the turn and river made Adams a full house.
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versus 
, fall behind against a turned straight and eventually river a boat. 
to pull in even more chips and now finds himself on top here in Tama.
and Gonder on 
with a board reading 
and after the raiser checked and Adams bet, Dietz slid in a raise. 
. The flop came 
and when his opponent led for 600, Lenard bumped it to 1,400. His opponent pushed in and Adams called it off with middle pair.