Day 1a of the MSPT Season 16 Iowa Poker State Championship at Riverside Casino is officially in the books with 128 total entries tallied during the first flight.

With action needing to play down to 11% of the field, 15 levels were required, as there was 33:43 remaining on the clock once the hard stop was reached with William Failor and his stack of 463,000 leading the charge of the 15 advancing players.

Two-time MSPT champ Ken Baime was able to catch some late-night steam to put 388,000 in his bag to end the night, while MSPT Hall of Famer Aaron Johnson was hot on his tail, ending with 381,000.

Rounding out the top five stacks of the flight were MSPT champ Jeff Copeland (346,000) and Brandon Reyes (319,000), while Randy Perkins (308,000) was the only other player to eclipse the 300k mark.

Others who found a Day 2 berth after the first starting flight included Jeff Kenny (297,000), Steve Buell (188,000), Saad Ghanem (180,000), and back-to-back Player of the Year Umut Ozturk (174,000).

Among those to try and fall on Day 1a included MSPT champ Lee Rzentkowski, Rainer Nielsen, Matthew Dahl, Ramon Ziadeh, and Edward Burke, among others.

Those players, as well as any newcomers, have two more starting flights to jump back into action.

Day 1b will kick off at 2:00 p.m. local time Friday, while the third and final flight, Day 1c, will take place at the same time on Saturday.

The surviving players from each flight will then return at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday to play down to a winner.

MSPT Season 16 Iowa Poker State Championship Schedule

Join us tomorrow as we continue to bring you all the action and eliminations straight from the tournament floor of Riverside Casino!