Day 1 In the Books: Bryn Kenney Leads The Way
It was a long, action packed night here at the Rio as Day 1 of Event #10: $5,000 Seven Card Stud played out. 145 players entered the event, up from last year’s total of 126, though it should be noted that last year’s version of this tournament was a $10,000 entry. Of the 145 entrants, 91 remain, and Bryn Kenney leads the way with 59,000 chips. The two players who fought heads up for the bracelet last year, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier (10,300) and Steve Landfish (31,100) were at the same table most the day, and both will return tomorrow.
The big hand for Kenney occurred when he knocked out two well known stud specialists: Chad Brown and Jen Harman.
Harman: (x-x) / 
/ (x)
Kenney: (x-x) / 
/ (x)
Brown: (x-x) / 
/ (x)
Tom McCormick: (x-x) / 
fold
Did you get all that? Ok here we go. When we got to the table, Brown and Harman were all in on third street against Kenney and McCormick. Kenney proceeded to bet the whole way until McCormick folded on sixth street. Kenney showed 
in the hole and caught the 
on the river to make aces up. Brown couldn't catch another king or three on seventh street to fill up, while Harman showed just the 
for a pair of queens before mucking her hand and heading to the rail.
Not everyone was as lucky as the aforementioned players. Stud expert Chris Tryba was one of the earliest causalities of the day. He was joined on the rail by Dan Kelly, Chris Klodnicki, Justin “Boosted J” Smith, Robert and Michael Mizrachi, Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu, amongst others.
There’s still a proverbial who’s who of poker pros that are still in contention for the bracelet. Jason Mercier ended the day with 32,900 chips. He will be double dipping tomorrow, as he has 50,000 in the $1,500 re-entry event. Andy Bloch is still in contention for back-to-back bracelets with 24,800 in chips. Cory Zeidman is in contention for his 2nd bracelet of the young summer with 24,700 in chips, and in addition to Grospellier, two more champs of this event, Freddie Ellis (36,000) and Chris Reslock (23,400), are still alive.
The remaining players will come back tomorrow at 2 p.m. for Day 2 of the event. The goal will be to play down to the final table, but they will stop after 10 levels of play if they haven’t reached the final eight by then. Until then, thanks for staying tuned to Pokernews, and goodnight from Las Vegas!