Jason Wheeler raised to 2,200 from middle position, and it folded around to Kevin Boudreau in the small blind who reraised to 5,800. The BB folded, and Wheeler shoved all in. Boudreau made the call, showing to Wheeler's .
Boom came the flop -- . Quads. And that was that.
Boudreau is up to 46,000, while Wheeler slides to 14,500.
The clock has been stopped, and a mere four hands of Day 1a remain. Fewer than 300 players of the 2,601 who started today will be returning for Day 2 on Monday.
With the board showing , Sangni Zhao checked, "Amarillo Slim" Preston bet 3,500, and Zhao called. The river brought the . Zhao checked again, Preston bet 4,000, then Zhao pushed all in for 26,000.
Preston thought a moment, then folded, showing the as he did. Zhao decided to turn over one of his cards as well as he dragged the pot, also (presumably) choosing the most ambiguous one to show -- the .
"I'd bet anything he had the best hand," said the long-time gambler. Preston now has about 39,000 as we near the end of play on Day 1a.
We arrived just in time to see Jim Meehan double up; the cards looked like so:
Board:
Meehan's opponent: for two pair
Meehan: for a straight
"I'm sorry," Meehan told his opponent, "I have no explanation for being a moron."
Meehan, one of hands busy playing with the cigarette we bet he's going to smoke within seconds of this finishing, just haphazardly gathered his new chips into what we in the business call a "dirty stack" so it's hard to say for certain, but his new stack seemed to be in the 30,000 ballpark.
“Players, please leave your chips on the table. Do not take your chips home with you!”
Such was the instruction Tournament Director Steve Frezer half-jokingly delivered as players bagged their chips at the end of play today. Indeed, after a long day of taking such care of those chips, one could perhaps understand if a player were to allow the protective instinct to continue beyond the end of play.
We’ve arrived at the end of the first of two Day Ones for Event No. 3, the first of the $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em events at this year’s Series. A huge field of 2,601 turned out today, and after ten one-hour levels, we saw a few stacks starting to flirt with the 100,000-chip range.
Those bagging the most chips at the end of play today included Drew Crawford, Nancy Todd Tyner, Brent Roberts, Jerrymee Jose, Dan Lu, and Blake Cahail. They’ll be joining approximately 280 others who survived today’s Day 1a -- as well as those who make it through tomorrow’s Day 1b -- at 2:30pm on Monday afternoon for Day 2.
Players continue to register for tomorrow’s Day 1b, and tourney officials have indicated they can accommodate as many as 3,700 more runners on Sunday. Most are anticipating a total field of 6,000 or thereabouts, meaning we’re probably looking at a first prize somewhere in the $750,000 range -- not a bad return on a $1,000 investment!
Come back here to PokerNews tomorrow at noon Vegas time to see how many do eventually come out and how they fare.