Day 1a of the MSPT Season 16 Colorado Poker State Championship at Bally’s Casino is officially in the books with 167 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 25:46 remaining on the clock once the hard stop was reached with Antonio Vargas and his stack of 840,000 leading the charge of the 19 advancing players by a wide margin.

MSPT champ Beau "Don K. Nado" Wilshire was able to catch some late-night steam to put 600,000 in his bag to end the night, while Nathaniel Shoshan was hot on his tail, ending with 526,000.

Rounding out the top five stacks of the flight were Jeff Soffer (414,000) and Bruce Carter (383,000), as they were the only other players to eclipse the 300k mark.

Others who found a Day 2 berth after the first starting flight included Nader Wahdan (288,000), Maziar Keshavarzi (191,000), Daniel Brewer (159,000), and January’s runner-up finisher Zach Gutierrez (129,000).

Among those to try and fall on Day 1a included Gregory Scharlach, Ermias Ayele, Charlie Petryl, Roger Low, and Reza Sheykhi, 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 noon 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 Colorado Poker State Championship Schedule

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