It was a day of wild play, massive showdowns and stunning eliminations but when all was said and done Michael Esquivel won a huge pot at the end of the night to emerge as the top stack in Day 1B of the MSPT 157 Main Event at Canterbury Park.

Esquivel bagged 388,000 chips to lead the flight and take over the overall chip lead for the tournament. Andy Tran settled for second place finishing the evening with 251,000. Mark Hodge put away 214,500 to finish third followed by Blake Bohn with 213,500 in fourth and Joe Matheson rounded out the top five with 187,000. Other notables getting through the flight include Dan Favreau (170,000) and current Season 10 Player of the Year points leader Mike Shin (91,500).

Many of MSPT’s top players and champions could not find their way out of tonight’s flight including MSPT Hall of Famers Aaron Johnson, Kou Vang and Rich Alsup plus past MSPT Main Event winners Peixin Liu, Mark Sandness, James Gibson, Jonathan Kim, Ben Marsh, Josh Meyer, Matthew Kirby, Jason Sell, Dan “DQ” Hendrickson, Andrew Rubinberg, Rob Wazwaz and Jesse Rockowitz. Also missing out today were Reg Powell, Steve Wazwaz, DJ Buckley, Jon Hanner, Eric Eelkema, Mario Hudson and Umut Ozturk.

For Day 1B 164 entries were recorded and with the 109 entries from Day 1A, the tournament now stands at 273 total entries. 25 players navigated their way through tonight’s action and along with the 13 players who previously advanced, 38 players are now headed to Sunday with one more flight to go.

Day 1C will be the final starting flight of the tournament and kicks off Saturday at 12 PM Central. We’ll have full coverage for you right here on msptpoker.com throughout the day. Everyone who advances from the three starting flights will be back in action on Sunday at 11 AM to play for the title. We will also have the live stream of the final table broadcast on twitch.tv/msptpoker.

Congratulations to everyone who advanced to Day 2 and we’ll see you back here tomorrow at noon!