McKinney Bags Slim Lead as Hawkins Sits in Second After Day 1a of Cherokee Main Event
Day 1a of the WSOP Circuit Harrah’s Cherokee $1,700 Main Event has come to its conclusion with 37:59 remaining in Level 16 when the original staring field of 381 was trimmed to 16% after a tumultuous day of play. Just 60 standing at the end of the night.
The leader in the clubhouse after Day 1a was Michael McKinney who bagged an impressive 480,000. He was spotted late in the day with a huge stack and was able to keep his lead in the final few levels of play.
Right on his heels in second place was none other than 13-time ring winner Maurice Hawkins, who bagged 440,000. He gathered a large stack early and continued his trajectory among the largest stacks in the room throughout the day.
David Prociak with 407,000 and Abdul "Dulie" Amer with 402,000 were the only other two players to bag over the 400,000 mark to bring into Sunday's Day 2.
Leo Chen (369,000), David Jackson (366,000) and Randall Rothwell (366,000) rounded out the top seven in chip counts at the end of the night. In one particularly interesting hand, Rothwell cracked aces in a three-way all-in when his king-queen made two pair on the flop to win a pot of close to 400,000.
Several well-known players ended the day with chips including former NFL superstar Richard Seymour, who ended in the top 10 with a stack of 311,000. Aaron Massey bagged 240,000 while defending champ Jake Bazeley ended on the shorter side with 102,000.
The remaining 60 players will return to action on Day 2 on Sunday, December 8 at noon local time where they will collide with the survivors from Saturday's Day 1b to make for an exciting march toward Monday's final day.
PokerNews will have all the coverage as any player who busted today, plus any newcomers can try again tomorrow on Day 1b, which gets underway at 11 a.m.
against the 
.
to give him two-pair. The turn was a 
and the river a 
and Rothwell collected the huge pot, eliminating one player and greatly wounding the player who had held aces.
. A chunky pot of at least 70,000 was in the middle. David Prociak applied maximum pressure to his opponent by putting out a full stack of big chips for a bet of 100,000.
. Richard Seymour bet 15,000 and his opponent called after some moments of stewing it over. 
for the nut flush and collected the nice pot.
