Jason Koon Leads Stacked Field After Day 1 of $50,000 High Roller
After 12 fast-paced 40-minute levels that saw 101 entries fill Event #85: $50,000 High Roller, GGPoker Ambassador Jason Koon finished the day atop the chip counts with 2,405,000 chips.
Ole Schemion (1,760,000), Stephen Chidwick (1,700,000), and Shaun Deeb (1,650,000) are not far behind.
Also among the 35 players finding a bag for Sunday's Day 2 were 2021 World Series of Poker Player of the Year front-runner Josh Arieh, who bagged up 570,000 chips and Michael Addamo, who built a big chip lead early before finishing the day with a more than healthy 1,145,000.
$50,000 High Roller Day 1 Top 10 Chip Counts
| RANK | PLAYER | Country | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jason Koon | United States | 2,405,000 | 80 |
| 2 | Ole Schemion | Austria | 1,760,000 | 59 |
| 3 | Stephen Chidwick | United Kingdom | 1,700,000 | 57 |
| 4 | Shaun Deeb | United States | 1,650,000 | 55 |
| 5 | Ranganath Kanchi | United States | 1,565,000 | 52 |
| 6 | Dan Smith | United States | 1,450,000 | 48 |
| 7 | Mikita Badziakouski | Belarus | 1,325,000 | 44 |
| 8 | Michael Addamo | Australia | 1,145,000 | 38 |
| 9 | Darren Elias | United States | 1,144,000 | 38 |
| 10 | John Brooks | United States | 1,085,000 | 36 |
Plenty of stars fell by the wayside throughout the day including Fedor Holz, Scott Seiver, Adrian Mateos, and David Peters.
Day 2 will take place Sunday at 12 p.m. noon local time in the Amazon room, with the field playing down to a final table of five, which will be streamed Monday on PokerGO.
Registration will remain open until cards are in the air again, where it’s expected there will be several more last-minute entries, likely including Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, and Jeremy Ausmus, who were still finishing up the $50,000 Pot-Limit Omaha High Roller final table as this event bagged up for the night.
The action will resume at Level 13 with blinds of 15,000 and 30,000 with a 30,000 big blind ante.
Stay close to PokerNews for all the high roller action Saturday, live from the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino.