Day 1b of the Mid-States Poker Tour Potawatomi Hotel & Casino attracted 292 runners, which meant with Day 1a's 246 entrants the field swelled to 556 entries. That crushed the advertised $200,000 guarantee by creating a $556,000 total prize pool. That will be distributed to the top 54 finishers – a min-cash will be worth $2,151 – with the eventual winner taking home $129,077.

The man best positioned to make a run at it, at least from the Day 1b field, is Richard Bai of Schaumburg, Illionois, who bagged up the chip lead among the 64 survivors with a stack of 299,000. However, when the 113 surviving players from both starting flights combine at 11 a.m. on Sunday, Illinois' Abraham Montenegro, who bagged 387,500 on Day 1a, will lead the pack.

Rounding out the top five Day 1b big stacks are James Calvo (210,500), Miroslav Semanisin (201,500), Luke Arora (199,500), and John Zawaski (174,000). Aurora's run is of particular interest as less than a week ago he won the MSPT Running Aces Main Event for $83,773, which you can read about here. Can Arora (pictured above) possibly go back-to-back?

Others who advanced to Day 2 include Larry Ormson (152,000), defending champ Dan Goepel (148,000), Mike Holm (145,500), MSPT Pro Blake Bohn (85,500), Wisconsin State Poker champ Andy Rubinburg (61,000), MSPT bestbet Jacksonville Regional winner Blake Whittington (60,600), and two-time MSPT champ Dan Sun (60,000).

Of course not everyone was so lucky. Those to take a shot (or two) on Day 1b only to fall were Mark "P0ker H0" Kroon, Josh Reichard, Jeff Fielder, former champ Jason Mirza, MSPT Pros Matt Alexander and Matt Kirby, Ralph and Aaron Massey, and the talkative Howard Hankin, star of the MSPT's popular To Hell w/ Howard video series of Facebook.

Day 2 will kick off at 11 a.m. CDT on Sunday. The plan is to play through the money all the way down to a winner, so be sure to check back then as we bring you all the action and eliminations straight from the floor of the MSPT Potawatomi Main Event.