Ludiker Leads Day 1d at MSPT Black Hawk $360 Regional
The fourth and final starting flight of the Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) drew a packed house throughout the first half of the day and then some, ultimately seeing 347 entries bring the four-day total up to 998. After 15 full levels of play, Matthew Ludiker (370,000) was the one with the most chips of the 51 players still remaining when chips went into bags.
Ludiker had one of the biggest stacks in the room after play resumed from dinner and he rode his last 90 minutes of play to the top of the counts, winning a coin flip with ace-ten to pocket nines in the final level of the night to knock out a player for a pot that ultimately made him the chip leader at the end of the evening. Cy Church (328,000), Nader Wahdan (298,000), Scott Horvath (278,000), and Roger Low (277,000) made up the top five for the day.
Others to advance included Danny Gonzales (209,000), reigning champion Erasmus Morfe (208,000), Phil Gioia (181,000), Adrian Buckley (124,000), and Austin Peck (106,000).
Erik Macias, Corey Zedo, Barry Faecher, Kane Lai, and Greg Geller were among those less fortunate, failing to make it through the full day's worth of play.
A total of 144 will return for Sunday's Day 2 with 16 full tables' worth of players coming into the day with their sights set on being the last one standing. Of those 143, the top 108 will make it into the money with the eventual winner taking home $55,383.
PokerNews will be at it once more come then to take you all the way to the finish line. See you then.
. The under-the-gun player showed 
and Dean turned over 
.
to give the shortest stack a shot at a triple, but running 
left the situation unchanged and Dean scooped both pots, leaving Lai short in doing so.
gave him the nuts. The turn 
to take him above three starting stacks while sending Suzuki down to just a handful of big blinds remaining in his stack.
, causing even more excitement among hte table before the river landed 
and found himself bounced from the tournament as a result.
and the big blind had 4,000 out in front of him. Action was back on him after 2018 MSPT Black Hawk Regional Champion Adam Wilbur raised all in for the player's effective 25,000 behind.
with three players holding cards. The small blind checked and the big blind bet 2,100, with Vincent Cieluch calling in early position. The small blind then folded.
