2018 World Series of Poker

Craig Varnell opened from under the gun to 1,500 with Sasha Barrese defending the big blind.
The flop came , Barrese check-called a bet of 2,400 from Varnell. The turn brought a , Barrese checked again and faced a hefty bet of 7,700 from Varnell, which was for around half her stack. After taking a minute Barrese released her hand into the muck as Varnell added to his chip stack.

On the second break and with the final minutes of registration closing fast, 36 players elected to pay the $565 entry to come into Level 9 with a fresh stack. The 5,000-chip starting stack amounts to just over 8 big blinds.

Flight 1a Registration has ended with the start of Level 9. A total of 1,193 players entered with hopes of a gold bracelet, and right now only 393 of them have kept that hope alive.

The first flight of Event #19: $565 Pot-Limit-Omaha sees bracelet winner Ben Ponzio and Francis Mohan as co-chip leaders each sitting with 60,000.

The players are currently on their second break of the day for 20 minutes. Although play only commenced four hours ago, 769 players so far have busted the massive field of 1,167 entries. Registration will close at the end of the break, but players are still able to register this event by playing the second flight which will begin at 5:00 p.m.

With the half-hour levels and starting stack size, Day 1 is proving to be a get-up or get-out day as stacks will grow quickly upwards or fall to the felt as we charge on through the first starting flight. Right now Ben Ponzio leads with others such as Vivian Saliba and Sasha Barrese accumulating chips.

Among the growing number of eliminations today are Michael Tran, and Greg Raymer. Tran fired a second bullet, but was unable to survive in this flight.

Arriving at the table to see a multi-way pot with Greg Raymer, Michael Constantine, and another player all in on a flop of , Raymer was sitting with only 700 chips behind.

The turn brought a with the action checking through. The river revealed another queen in the and it checked around again. Constantine rolled over for trip queens with Raymer and the other player tossing their hands into the muck. The 25,000-chip pot slid in Constantine's direction, leaving Raymer with under two big blinds.