Day 1B of the MSPT Venetian $1,100 Main Event drew 206 runners, which along with 1A’s 109 brought the total field up to 315 entries. That means the top 36 will get paid a minimum of $2,150 while the eventual winner will walk away with $70,638.

The man best positioned to make a run at it, at least from the Day 1B field, is Mavrick Yoo (pictured), who bagged 480,000 among the 28 survivors. That is well ahead of Day 1A chip leader Eric Blair, who advanced with 325,000.

Yoo, who hails from Compton, California, has $42,521 in live tournament earnings, almost all of which $39,740) came when he finished third in the 2015 Commerce Poker Series Event #1: $350 NLH. He is seeking his first MSPT cash.

Others who bagged big stacks were 2014 WSOP APAC Main Event champ Scott Davies (411,500), Minh Nguyen (331,500), Cliff Goldkind (274,000), and Corey Hochman (237,000), who round out the top five.

Others to make it were John McClelland (164,000), Darren Rabinowitz (152,000), Vic Peppe (103,000), Dan Jones (99,000), Stan Jablonski (70,500), and Alex Winter (63,000).

Among those who failed to advance were Poker Hall of Famer Jack McClelland, World Series of Poker bracelet winner Ryan Leng, and MSPT Venetian Poker Bowl II champ Kfir Nahum. Likewise, other former MSPT champs to hit the rail were Andy Rubinberg, Peixin Liu, Jason Seitz, Ahmed Taleb, and Paul Cross.

On Sunday, the surviving 41 players (13 from 1A, 28 from 1B) will return at Noon local time for Day 2 action. It won’t take long for the money bubble to burst on the way to playing down to a winner.