Day 1B of the MSPT Golden Gates Main Event saw 153 runners come to Black Hawk, Colorado, which along with Thursday’s 113 entrants brought the total field up to 266 entries with one flight still to go.
By day’s end, just 19 remained with World Series of Poker bracelet winner Adam Friedman and his stack of 354,000 out in front. That is a single T500 chip ahead of Max Young, who led the 14 Day 1 survivors with 353,500.
Friedman, who hails from Ohio, has $2.2 million in lifetime earnings, which includes $269,037 for winning the 2012 WSOP Event #15: $5,000 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo. Other highlights on his poker résumé include $235,390 for placing 43rd in the 2005 WSOP Main Event, $200,440 for taking sixth in the 2014 WPT LA Poker Classic, and $147,940 for winning the 2006 Midwest Regional Poker Championships.
As far as the MSPT is concerned, Friedman, who often does commentary for our final tables, has eight cashes for $133,649, including three final tables. He’s placed third on two separate occasions – first at the Season 5 FireKeepers for $45,000 and at the start of Season 9 at JACK Cleveland Casino for $52,976. He also took fourth in the Season 7 Canterbury Park for $24,699.
Friedman doesn’t play a ton of tournaments – he prefers high-stakes mixed games – but he’ll do his best this weekend to capture a long-awaited MSPT title.
Others to bag big stacks were Tim Acker (282,500), Ian Sylvester (273,000), Svetlana Martie (256,000), and reigning champ Jason Beasley (240,000), who round out the top five.
The big stacks were joined by Dash Dudley (196,000), Phil Mader (195,500), Will Mietz (105,000), Daniel Lim (98,000), Michael McCloud (75,000), and the short-stacked Andreas Ramadanis (40,500).
Not everyone was able to bag today, however. This event’s defending champ Fred Garcia, as well as Keith Block, Joseph Michael, and Osama “Sammy” Aweida, who finished second, third, and fourth respectively at this event last year, all failed to find a bag.
Among others to fall short were “Big” Al Hedin, two-time MSPT champ Jeremy Dresch, last week’s MSPT Golden Gates $360 Regional champ Barry Faecher, MSPT Golden Gates Regional runner-ups Drew Schulz and Tom Bouziden, Illinois’ Cody Brinn, and Iowa’s Scotter Clark.
One flight remains for the Main Event. Day 1C will kick off at Noon local time on Saturday. Among those we expect to see in tomorrow’s final flight are Travis Northrope, Umut Ozturk, Ryan Dodson, and Season 6 MSPT Golden Gates champ Kane Lai.
We’ll be here every step of the way to capture all the action, so be sure to check back tomorrow for the final flight of MSPT Golden Gates!