Tam Nguyen Sits Atop the Day 1c Leaderboard; JC Tran and Phil Hellmuth Still in Contention
Day 1c, the last of three starting flights in Event 84: $1,500 The Closer No-Limit Hold'em, has come to an end and 121 of the original field 1,613 players have moved on to Day 2. Thanks to winning a massive pot on the last hand of the day Tam Nguyen bagged 1,284,000 and looks to be the chipleader at the end of Day 1c. Others who bagged impressive chipstacks included Steve Yea (924,000), Wai Kiat Lee (826,000), Kevin Killeen (760,000) and Fabrizio Gonzalez (754,000).
The day started off with 356 players registered by the time the cards went in the air, but with the combination of the unlimited re-entry format and the fact that this event offered players the opportunity to grab one of the final gold bracelets of the 2019 WSOP, that number grew to 1,613 by the time registration closed. That final number created a Day 1c prize pool of $2,177,550. After the bubble burst early in level 18, just 242 players had made the money with a min-cash worth $2,254.
Numerous players, including notables such as Daniel Negreanu, Greg Raymer, Pierre Neuville and James Calderaro, took full advantage of the unlimited re-entries option and fired several bullets, while others such as Barbara Enright, Mike Shariati, actor and comedian Brad Garrett, gold medal-winning boxer Audley Harrison and three-time Superbowl Champion Richard Seymour gave it one shot, but all fell short of cashing. However, numerous notables, including Loni Harwood, Athanasios Polychronopoulos, Kelly Minkin, Martin Zamani and Stan Jablonski, did find their way to the payout desk, while Erik Cajelais (599,000), Justin Young (466,000), Pat Lyons (411,000), Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier (388,000), JC Tran (281,000) and a short-stacked Phil Hellmuth (142,000) are just a few of the familiar names that bagged to return on Day 2.
The 121 survivors from Day 1c will join the 75 players that moved on from the first two starting flights, making a total of 196 players that will continue their quest for the gold WSOP bracelet on Monday, July 15th at noon local time. They are scheduled to play down to a winner, and although it's not clear at this time exactly what the Day 2 min-cash will be, the one thing that is certain is that they are chasing the WSOP gold bracelet and six-figure score.
The PokerNews team will be on the floor to cover all the action from when the first is dealt until the last card hits the felt and the newest WSOP champion is crowned.