Nicolas Fierro Leads The Final 249; Matt Berkey Not Far Behind
Today’s $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em tournament got more runners then any of the preceding $1,500 events, with the exception of the “Millionaire Maker”, as 2,161 players took to the felt today. After 11 grueling levels of poker, Nicolas Fierro leads the final 249 players, after bagging up a huge stack of 176,500. He is 30,000 clear of the next two stacks, Jonathan Driscoll (142,000) and Jeremy Menard (141,100), who were sitting elbow-to-elbow for the last half of the day.
As is always the case in these events, we lost a ton of notables on the way to completing the day. Some of the many who came and went today included David “ODB” Baker, Phil Ivey, Victor Ramdin, Bertrand Grospellier, Matt Waxman, Greg Raymer, Antonio Esfandiari, and Jake Cody, amongst many others.
It wasn’t all bad news for our notables, as there were plenty of familiar faces who bagged up tonight. This list includes Matt Berkey (126,600), Jake Balisger (85,600), Jeremy Ausmus (70,000), Tuan Le (59,000), Garry Gates (51,900), Matt Salsberg (35,400), and our very own Frank Op de Woerd, who will come into tomorrow with 43,600.
The 249 survivors from today will be back tomorrow at 1 PM to play ten more levels of poker, with the hopes of getting down to a final table, though it is unlikely. Only 243 of them will make the money, meaning six unfortunate players will be walking away empty handed. As always, we will be here the entire day bringing you all the action, so be sure to come back to check out our coverage. Thanks for tuning in, and good night from the Rio!