Day 1a of the MSPT Season 17 Iowa Poker State Championship at Riverside Casino is officially in the books with 69 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 18:35 remaining on the clock once the hard stop was reached, with last year’s fourth-place finisher Michael Kreutzer securing the final elimination of the night, putting 690,000 in his bag to lead the eight advancing players.

Bagging behind Kreutzer was last year’s sixth-place finisher, Jeff Kenny, as he was able to catch some late-night steam to put 335,000 in his bag to end the night, while Zac Campbell (330,000) was the only other player to clip 300k.

Defending Champ Mike Estes took a few bad beats at the end of the night, but was still able to find a 269,000 stack to take into Day 2, while MSPT Champ Brian Landon (164,000), Dalton Jones (123,000), Tim Kelly (94,000), and Shawn Quinn (66,000) were the only others to survive the first flight.

Among those to try and fall on Day 1a included Season 14 Iowa Poker State Champ Ben Pettinger, Ranae Warren, Mark Lafata, Ramon Ziadeh, and MSPT Hall of Famer Gerald Cunniff, 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 17 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!