Day 1a of the MSPT Grand Falls $1,110 Main Event is in the books with the first flight tallying 163 runners.

Plenty of players made their way to Grand Falls Casino, creating a room full of MSPT champs, Icons, and Hall of Famers.

With chips flying and players dropping throughout the day, play tightened up in the later levels as only 11% of the field was finding a Day 2 berth, and that mark was hit with 21:37 remaining in Level 16 (4,000/8,000/8,000).

Once players put pens to slips, it was none other than back-to-back Player of the Year Umut Ozturk who ended up leading the pack of 18 with a whopping 704,000.

Ozturk was seen building a stack in the later levels, and then capped by securing the final elimination of Jeremy Frost to end the night.

Caden Coleman was able to find the second spot on the leaderboard after sitting atop the counts for the majority of the day and ended with a respectable 531,000.

A familiar Rodney Colson was able to hold his own throughout the day as well, finishing the day with 504,000, while Ryan Remmes (403,000) and Jon Hanner (400,000) rounded out the top five stacks.

Others that advanced included Kevin Berthelsen (379,000), DJ Buckley (159,000), five-time MSPT champ Blake Bohn (148,000), Jake Long (88,000), and defending champ Angela Jordison (78,000).

Among those to try and fall on Day 1a included Aaron Thomas, 2021 Grand Falls champ Chad Bjorkman, Howard Dion, Terry Williams, and Justin Heilman, to name a few.

All who did not bag will have one more flight to try and do so, with that being held tomorrow, Saturday, August 9^th at 2:00 p.m. local time.

As usual, the live reporting team will be back at it then, so be sure to come back and see who else adds their name to Sunday's Day 2 roster.

MSPT Season 16 Grand Falls Remaining Schedule