Day 1A of the latest Mid-States Poker Tour Running Aces Casino proved to be a record-breaking affair on two fronts. First, the 179 entrants made it the largest-ever Day 1A field at the venue. Second, Sam Topalovic bagged up one of the largest Day 1 chip lead in tour history with 467,500.
Topalovic only has one MSPT cash, which was $2,286 for finishing 35th in a Season 6 stop at Canterbury Park. All told, he had $38,416 in live tournament earnings with his career best being $15,376 for finishing eighth in the 2016 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Circuit Horseshoe Hammond High Roller.
After 14 levels of play, 29 players remained including other big stacks like two-time MSPT champ Jeremy Dresch (398,500), Eric Eelkema (216,500), and WSOP bracelet winner John Reading (194,000).
They were joined by current MSPT POY points leader Keith Heine (174,500), 2016 Minnesota Poker Player of the Year Saad Ghanem (95,000), Wisconsin’s Rick Syverud (62,500), MSPT Season 2 Canterbury Park champ Kou Vang (35,500). and defending champ Luke Bohnen (113,500), who won earlier this season for $86,440.
Of course, not everyone was fortunate enough to find a bag. Among those to try and fall were MSPT champs Paul Cross, Jonathan Kim, Erv Bjerga, Matt Kirby, Peixin Liu, Joe Matheson, Josh Reichard, John Sun, and Jason Sell. Likewise, WSOP bracelet winner Mitch Schock, MSPT Season 6 Player of the Year Mark Hodge, MSPT Season 7 POY Rich Alsup, and professional soccer player Bernardo Anor all found themselves on the rail.
Day 1B will kick off at 4 p.m. local time on Saturday. Before that at 10:30 a.m., there will be a last-chance $250 satellite with 20% of the field advancing to the Main Event.
We’ll be back tomorrow to bring you all the latest and greatest straight from the tournament floor, so be sure to join us then.