The following players have recently been eliminated to take the tournament down to its final 27 players. A full redraw for the field is currently underway - new seating assignments and chip counts will be posted shortly.
$1,700 Main Event
Day 1b Completed
The second of two opening flights is complete in the World Series of Poker Circuit Thunder Valley $1,700 Main Event. Day 1b drew 273 total entrants, with 68 surviving to come back for Day 2. Those 68 players will join the 31 survivors of the Day 1a flight, and the combined field of 99 will return for a noon restart on Sunday.
Plenty of big names came through the Thunder Valley Poker Room in Lincoln, California, to take a shot at advancing in the tournament. At the end of the night, it was Roman Shainiuk bagging the biggest stack with 421,500 chips.
Closely following on the chip leaderboard are Paul Chai (408,000), Kelly Minkin (293,000), Ian Chan (280,500), and Dinh Le (278,000).
Notable players also bagging Day 1b included Brett Murray (200,500), Jimmy Zeledon (118,000), Pat Lyons (56,000), David Brookshire (50,500) and Rickey Evans (116,000).
The Thunder Valley Poker Room was filled with some of poker’s best tournament players Saturday, and some of the notable players who failed to make it through to Day 2 included Ian Steinman, Craig Varnell, Jarod Minghini, JC Tran, Joe Elpayaa, Josh Prager, Scott Sanders and Kenny Tran.
The 273 Day 1b entrants brought the total number of entries for the Main Event to 414. The total prize pool is $627,210, with $130,667 going to the eventual winner. The tournament will pay 63 places, and with 99 totals players coming back for Day 2, the money bubble should burst fairly quickly on Sunday.
Play will resume at Level 16, with the blinds at 2000/4000 and a 4,000 big blind ante. The tournament is scheduled to play down to the final nine Sunday, with those nine coming back for the final table Monday.
Follow along with the PokerNews live reporting team as the WSOP Circuit Thunder Valley Main Event continues.
Play has concluded for Day 1b and the remaining 68 players are finished putting chips into bags. An assortment of chip counts has been provided, with a full list and a recap of the day's action soon to come.
Dealers will deal four more hands before Day 1b play ends for the night.
Pat Lyons had Rickey Givens well covered, when the two went all in for all of Given's chips preflop.
Rickey Givens: 
Pat Lyons: 
Board: 
Lyons' stack took a hit, while Givens is up to 117,000 in the last level of the day.
Frank Szuchopa raised to 8,000 from under the gun and was three-bet to 20,000 by Kelly Minkin, who was two to his left. Action folded back around to him and he committed the remainder of his chips. Minkin called.
Frank Szuchopa: 
Kelly Minkin: 
An ace in the window was immediately visible as the dealer fanned a flop of 
. The turn 
and river kept Szuchopa ahead to earn the double. His stack was counted out to be 50,000 on the dot and Minkin sent the remaining 30,000 his way.
"Nice hand," Minkin said softly with a smile.
Szuchopa reciprocated the sentiment with a heartfelt, "Thank you," as he scooped and stacked his newly-earned chips.
Fireworks had just flown on Table 6 as a slew of chips were in the process of being sent Ian Chan's way. According to both Chan and Billy Le in a team effort, Le opened to 7,000 from early position and was three-bet to 11,500 from JC Tran out of the cutoff. The player on the button then went all in for 29,500.
After Amir Turkzadeh folded his small blind, action was on Ian Chan in the big blind. He called, prompting a fold from Le. Tran then called to take future action heads up between Chan and Tran for a side pot.
The flop fell 
and Chan shoved for the effective 30,000 or so left in Tran's stack. Tran called.
JC Tran:
Ian Chan: 
Third Player: 
The turn came to give Chan a sweat at wheel outs, but he faded them as the river 
secured the double knockout for him, bringing him to the quarter-million chip mark with less than a half-hour of play left in the night.
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