Day 1b of the 2016 Mid-States Poker Tour Indiana State Poker Championship at Tropicana Evansville drew an unexpected 198 entrants that, along with Day 1a's 142 runners, brought the total field up to 340 entries. That is considerably more than the 225 and 251 entrants that played in 2014 and 2015 respectively.

Of course the $250,000 advertised guarantee was laid to rest early on. By the time late registration closed, a total prize pool of $340,000 was created. That will be distributed to the top 36 players with $82,450 reserved for the eventual winner.

The man best positioned to make a run at the title, at least from the Day 1b field, is Jason Ramos, who bagged the chip lead among the 38 survivors with 285,500. That is a little ahead of Day 1a chip leader Joseph Bommarito's 260,000.

Another player advancing from the Day 1b flight is Michael O'Neill (pictured above), who won the inaugural Indiana State Poker Championship last year for $67,746. O'Neill, who was second in chips with 256,000, aims to follow in the footsteps of Carl Carodenuto, who earlier this year became the first player to successfully defend his title (he did it at Canterbury Park). Can O'Neill retain the Indiana State Poker Championship title? One thing is for sure, if he does he'll forever etch his name in poker history.

Others who made it through the night were current MSPT Season 7 Player of the Year leader and Iowa State Poker Champion John Sun (228,000), Hollywood Poker Open St. Louis champ Cory Bogert (135,500), 2014 MSPT Tropicana Evansville Chales Dawson (75,500), West Virginia's Cotton Snuffer (54,500), and Justin Brown (48,000).

Among those to try and fail were World Series of Poker bracelet winners Nick Jivkov and Adam Friedman; MSPT Wisconsin State Poker Champion Andy Rubinberg; MSPT Season 6 Player of the Year Mark Hodge; two-time MSPT champ Jason Zarlenga; husband and wife John and Crystal Utley; and WSOP shift supervisor Charlie Ciresi.

Day 2 will get underway at 11 a.m. local time Sunday with the plan of the final 65 players (27 Day 1a survivors; 38 Day 1b survivors) playing down to a winner. As usual, the final table will be live streamed worldwide on msptpoker.com. Join us then as we bring you all the action straight from the floor of the 2016 MSPT Indiana State Poker Championship from Tropicana Evansville!