Welcome To Day 1a of the 2021 MSPT Black Hawk $360 Regional ($150K GTD)
The Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) continues to roll through summer, making its way westward to beautiful Black Hawk, Colorado for a two-weekend stint at the newly rebranded Bally’s Casino after more than an 18-month hiatus from the property. Up first is the $360 Regional ($150K GTD), which runs from Wednesday, August 4 through Sunday, August 8 and will be followed by next weekend’s $1,100 Main Event.
Day 1a is set to begin at noon local time and will be the first of four starting flights taking place each day through Saturday. Last time around, the MSPT Black Hawk Regional set a Colorado state record with 1,087 entries over the same four days’ worth of starting flights with Erasmus Morfe claiming victory for $53,048 after a heads-up chop with Alex Kotliarski, who earned $43,000 of his own.
Players begin with 25,000 starting stacks and blinds of 100/100. Big-blind ante is in play from the get-go with 30-minute levels all tournament long and 10-minute breaks taking place after every four levels, or two hours of play. Late registration will remain open until the beginning of Level 13 (1,500/2,500/2,500) at approximately 6:30 p.m. local time.
A total of 15 levels are scheduled on Day 1, with play set to end after blinds of 3,000/5,000/5,000 unless 12% of the field is reached prior to that mark, at which point a hard stop will occur and become the new stopping point for all subsequent flights. All left standing at that time will then bag and tag their chips, advancing to Sunday's Day 2. Should any advancing player wish to take a future shot at a bigger bag, they must forfeit their stack before bagging as this is not a best-stack-forward event.
Plenty of familiar faces to the Colorado poker scene including previous MSPT Black Hawk Regional Champion Aaron Frei, MSPT Black Hawk Main Event Champion Steve Wilkie, Ben Keeline, Danny Gonzales, and Jason Vanstrom should be making their way up the mountain with the hopes of being in contention on Sunday when it all comes down to the wire.
PokerNews will have you on all the updates from start to finish, so be sure to hang around.
. A player in early position jammed for 6,000 and Mary Hendricks re-jammed from the hijack, prompting all other players to quickly fold.
. Hendricks showed 
for top pair, top kicker with the nut flush draw. 
and river 
completed the runout, further improving Hendricks to top two pair en route to the pot and the knockout.
and a player in early position bet 2,000. Yohannes Ambaye called on the button.
and Ambaye's opponent bet another 4,000. Ambaye called and the river came 
, where his opponent checked.
and announced a straight, prompting his opponent to wish him a nice hand and muck his two cards. The dealer scooped them into the muck without showing and Ambaye took down the pot.
. Action checked to Patch and he continuation-bet 9,000. The hijack called, Lazzara folded, and then Wheeler called.
, sending Wheeler to re-enter as the pot was shipped Patch's way.
came to give Fjeldsted the nut flush draw and backdoor straight possibilities to go with it.
complete the runout to bring about a slow, extended sigh of relief. 
to confirm it did not give him his necessary two outer to stay alive.
