Day 1A of the $1,100 buy-in, $650,000 GTD MSPT Poker Bowl III at The Venetian Las Vegas brought in a huge field of 355 entries, crushing the 268 entries from last year. After just over 14 levels of play, the field was whittled down to 41 players with Shannon Shorr and his stack of 527,500 in command.
Shorr has already carved a name in the lexicon of poker greats at the young age of 33, with over $6.6 million in live tournament earnings as reported by Hendon Mob, including a career best $960,690 for his win at the 2006 Bellagio Cup II Main Event.
More Day 1A big stacks include WPT champ Jordan Cristos (397,000), Dapreesch Scates (343,000), Jon “PearlJammed” Turner (335,000), Pedro Mendez (332,500), and Eric “Basebaldy” Baldwin (323,500).
Others to advance to Saturday’s Day 2 include former MSPT champ “DQ” Dan Hendrickson (292,500), last year’s Day 1A chip leader Dylan Thomassie (267,000), last year’s fifth-place finisher Mike Lang (162,000), MSPT phenom Ian Matakis (124,500), MSPT Hall of Famer Kou Vang (116,000), Eddy Sabat (93,000), Ryan Remington (92,500), and Danny Wong (88,000).
Among those to fire and fail to find a bag include WSOP Main Event champ Ryan Riess, all-time online tournament poker earnings leader Chris “Moorman1” Moorman, recent WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic champ Dylan Linde, WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown champ Justin Young, Ryan “Protentialmn” Laplante, WSOP Bracelet winner Jared Jaffee, former viral sensation William Hung, and Washington pro Matt Affleck.
Likewise, Season 9 MSPT POY Aaron Johnson as well as MSPT Poker Bowl II champ Kfir Nahum hit the rail, as did tour regulars Sammy Aweida, DJ Buckley, Sam DeSilva, Sherry Hammers, Reg Powell, Travis Sweet, Brian Berthiaume and Charles Workman.
All of those players, including newcomers such as Umut and Kanat Ozturk, will have the opportunity to try again during tomorrow’s Day 1B flight, which will kick off at 12:10 local time on Friday. Registration is open now, and late registration and re-entries will remain open through Level 9, which is roughly 6:50 pm.
Be sure to join us tomorrow as we bring you all the action straight from The Venetian tournament floor!