Day 1B of the 2018 MSPT South Dakota State Poker Championship at Silverado-Franklin Casino drew 154 runners. Along with 1A’s 132 it brought the total field up to 286 entries, which makes it the largest major poker tournament by both attendance and prize pool in state history (surpasses the 2009 HPT Lucky Nugget Gambling Hall’s 176 entries/$250,230 prize pool).

The top 36 spots will get paid a minimum of $1,931 while the eventual winner is slated to walk away with $63,462.

This marks the first time the MSPT has partnered with Silverado-Franklin Casino for the South Dakota State Poker Championship, a tournament that dates back to 2011. The biggest prior to this year was 2017’s 136 entries. It also marks the first time a major poker tour has held a stop in Deadwood since 2009.

After 14 levels of play, just 32 players survived the flight with Rick Burleson and his stack of 416,000 leading the pack. That is well ahead of Wyoming’s Ryan Remington, who was the 1A chip leader with 222,000. Burleson is seeking his first MSPT cash.

Others to bag big stacks were Henry Gingerich (219,000), Tony Diehl (161,000), Monte Evans (143,500), and Neal Lemler (143,000), who round out the top five.

They were joined at the end of the night by Jon Wurden (113,000), Mike Headland (93,500), Ken Lybeck (93,500), Brian Berthiaume (69,000), Doug Ficken (53,500), Breanna Skluzak (45,000), Alan Carty (32,500),

Among those to take a shot on Day 1B of the 2018 MSPT South Dakota State Poker Championship but come up short were former MSPT champs Alan Curl, Ted Takasaki, and Rodger Johnson, Minnesota’s Umut Ozturk and Kelly Hendrickson, Colorado’s Sammy Aweida and Jason Beasley, and last weekend’s MSPT Golden Gates runner-up Jeff Heiberg.

Day 2 will get underway at 11 a.m. local time with 54 players (22 from 1A, 32 from 1B) returning to action. We’ll capture all the action here in the live blog and also intend to live stream final table play complete with hole cards and commentary.