Welcome to Day 1a of the MSPT Black Hawk $1,110 Main Event ($200K GTD)
The Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) Black Hawk series begins its culmination on Thursday with Day 1a of the $1,110 Main Event ($200K GTD), the first of three starting days.
A week's worth of prelims have played to their conclusion, including a 998-entry $360 Regional that saw Juan Perez come out on top and earn himself $44,079 for his efforts. Others such as Cy Church, Vincent Moscati, Alex Kotliarsky, and Adrian Buckley also made it deep in the Regional, creating a hopeful momentum to ride into this weekend's Main Event.
Steve Wilkie also ran deep in last weekend's Regional event, taking 18th place ($2,934). More notably, however, is the fact that Wilkie enters the Main Event as reigning champion after topping a field of 399 to earn a career-best score of $85,149. A British native and Colorado resident, Wilkie was almost not going to be able to play this weekend due to his daughter's wedding, but international COVID restrictions have brought about a change in the wedding plans, thus enabling him to take a shot at defending his title.
The standard MSPT structure is in play, with 25,000 starting stacks and blinds beginning at 100/100/100. Levels will last 40 minutes all tournament long with 10-minute breaks at the end of every three levels, or two hours of play, and a 40-minute dinner break at the end of Level 9.
Late registration with one re-entry per flight is available for this event until the beginning of Level 13 (2,000/3,000/3,000), at approximately 9:10 p.m. local time. Fifteen levels are on the schedule for the day unless the field plays down to 12% of its total entries prior to that time, at which point a hard stop will be reached and will become the stopping point for all subsequent flights.
PokerNews will be bringing you updates from the time cards go in the air until chips have been sealed inside bags. Be sure to stick around.
with both players' hands still tabled: Carter's 
had flopped Broadway with a redraw to a Royal Flush, but Spahiu's flopped top two pair made a full house on the river to improve to the best hand and win the pot and the knockout.
from under the gun. Yohannes Ambaye raised to 2,200 in early position and Griboski called.
and Griboski checked. Ambaye bet 3,400 and Griboski put in a check-raise to 11,500.
as Smith picked up the nut flush draw. The turn 
completed that draw, giving Smith the nut flush and bringing about a fist pump from him as the river 
completed the runout and scored him the double knockout.
to score him the pot and the knockout.
fell cleanly in his favor and he scored a full double, with his opponent covering by about 10,000.
