Day 1c of the Mid-States Poker Tour Venetian $1,100 buy-in, $2,000,000 guarantee Main Event was a record-breaking affair as all 720 tables – which amounted to 720 seat – were each in use nearly two times over. Over the course of the day 1,420 players played the flight – nearly equal to the 1,477 total field of the 2016 World Series of Poker Event #10: $1,500 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold'em -- which set the record for the largest single-day field in The Venetian history.
Along with Day 1a's 499 and Day 1b's 968 entries brought the total field up to 2,887 entries, which smashed the $2 million guarantee by creating a $2,829,260 prize pool that will be distributed to the final 297 players. The winner will take home $403,178, and you can check out the rest of the payouts by clicking here.
After 15 levels of play, just 177 players survived the Day 1c flight with Matthew Herrera and his stack of 411,000 leading the way. That is ahead of Day 1b chip leader Alex Noble, who bagged up 382,000, but behind Brazil's Felipe Difini, who bagged up the Day 1a lead with 554,000.
Others who bagged big stacks were Sal Dicarlo (352,000), Billy Kopp (347,500), James Kilarjian (304,000), and Maury Solano (301,500), who round out the top five.
Others who made it through were MSPT Running Aces champ Mark Sandness (203,000), MSPT Potawatomi champ Dan Goepel (164,000), last year's WSOP Main Event third-place finisher Neil Blumenfield (153,500), 888poker pro Jessica Dawley (132,500), poker pro Ronnie Bardah (116,500), World Poker Tour champ Moon Kim (82,000), and former European footballer Jimmy Kebe (72,500).
Among those who fell on Day 1c were MSPT FireKeepers champ Aaron Massey, inaugural MSPT Wisconsin State Poker Champion Ben Wiora, MSPT Majestic Star champ Ken Baime, MSPT Meskwaki winner and WSOP bracelet winner Nick Jivkov, and WSOP Millionaire Maker Adrian Buckley.
The surviving players from all three flights, of which there are 354, will return for Day 2 action at 11 a.m. local time on Thursday. The plan will play down to the final table or as close as they can get to it after a full day of play. Be sure to join us then.