Day 1C of the 2018 MSPT Wisconsin State Poker Championship attracted 323 runners to Potawatomi’s Hotel & Casino, which along with 1A’s 156 and 1B’s 269 brought the total field up to 748 entries. That surpassed the 701 entries from the 2017 MSPT Wisconsin State Poker Championship to become the largest major poker tournament ($1K+ buy-in) in state history

After 15 levels of play, just 50 players remained with World Poker Tour champ Ravi Raghavan and his stack of 340,000 leading the way. That is between Byron Ziebell (355,000) and James McArthur (274,500), who were the Day 1B and 1A chip leaders respectively.

Others to bag big stacks John “Farmboy” Kurfman (285,000), William Koenig (264,000), Alin Cotolan (244,500), and Bill Brudenell (234,500), who round out the top five.

They were joined by Paul “Big Daddy” Elfelt (187,000), MSPT Season 5 Ho-Chunk champ Jason Sell (164,500), Gary Herstein (135,000), MSPT Season 7 Potawatomi champ Alex Aqel (133,000), Shiva Dudani (102,000), Sammy Aweida (82,500), and WPT champ Keven Stammen (62,500).

Among those to try their luck on 1C but come up short were defending champ Richard Bai, MSPT Season 6 POY Mark Hodge, MSPT Hall of Famer Kou Vang, Larry Ormson, 2016 MSPT Wisconsin State Poker Champ Andy Rubinberg, #MSPT100 champ Jason Ramos, Mark “P0ker H0” Kroon, and brothers Kanat & Umut Ozturk.

Tomorrow, 114 players (26 from 1A, 38 from 1B, 50 from 1C) will return for Day 2 action at 11 a.m. to play down to a winner.