It looked like tonight was going to go out with a whimper but explosions at two of the remaining three tables turned the evening upside down giving Blake Napierala a massive chip lead in Day 1B of the MSPT $300,000 Guaranteed Main Event at Jack Cleveland Casino.

Napierala pulled off a huge elimination to shoot his chip stack all the way up to 469,500 chips to bag the top stack of the night taking over the overall chip lead for the tournament. Lynn Rainey took the slow and steady route to second place for the day winding up with 291,500. Justin Mihalek was third with 284,500 followed by Jospeh Elhade with 282,000 and former MSPT JACK Cleveland Casino champion Abdul Amer rounded out the top five with 249,000. Two other past MSPT event champions also made it through to Day 2 as Daniel Bekavac (149,500) and Chris Meyers (77,000) punched their tickets to Sunday along with Pat Steele (158,000) and Spencer Wright (122,000).

A few notables failed to escape the Day 1A field including three-time WSOP bracelet winner Adam Friedman, DJ MacKinnon, former MSPT event winner Benjamin Wiora and Thomas Gliva.

For the Day 1B flight, 207 entries were recorded and 26 players were able to put away chips. Combined with Day 1A, the tournament is up to 326 entries and 40 players have advanced to Day 2 so far. The tournament has also already reached its $300,000 guarantee setting up what should be an outstanding prize pool for the event. The final starting flight for the Main Event is Saturday starting at 12 PM EST. Everyone who makes Day 2 will return on Sunday at 11 AM to play for the MSPT $300,000 Guaranteed Main Event at Jack Cleveland Casino.

Congratulations to everyone who advanced to Day 2. We will be back tomorrow at 12 PM EST for coverage of Day 1C of the Mid-States Poker Tour here on MSPTPoker.com from Cleveland, Ohio!