Day 1B of the 2014 World Poker Tour World Championship came and went at the Borgata in Atlantic City yesterday and good news! No reports of counterfeit chips! As expected, more players turned out for Tuesday’s action than Monday’s: 223 runners versus 105, creating a total field of 328. Jason Koon emerged from the second starting flight as the overall chip leader with 252,800.
Like we said yesterday, because of the step $15,000 buy-in, the WPT World Championship wasn’t going to break any records for WPT tournament size, but 328 players is still a fantastic turnout. Just look at last year: only 146 players competed at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. The total prize pool as yet to be announced, but if the field stays at its current size, there will actually be an overlay. Factoring in the 3 percent dealer tip, the prize pool generated would be $4,772,400, well below the $5,000,000 guarantee. Even without the tip, the prize pool would fall just short. Thus, according to the tournament’s pre-set payout structure, the top 36 players would make the money with the winner taking 27 percent of the prize pool, or $1,350,000.
Perhaps because Day 1B was twice the size of Day 1A (or perhaps not), the top of the overall leaderboard is fairly interesting looking. The top four players all came from Day 1B, each of them beating out Day 1A leader Paul Volpe’s 215,300 chip stack. After the top four, the next five were all Day 1A players.
Glancing through the seat draws for Day 2, Table 1 could be interesting, as both Koon and the fourth place player, Lee Markholt (217,700) will be there. Jordan Siegel, with 163,500 chips, will also be duking it out with them as they try to bully the short stacks. Table 6 is odd, in that the biggest stack there is Brandon Steven with 195,500 and then nobody else has more than 88,400. Four players at that table have from 76,000 to 79,400 chips. And one table that will have virtually everyone fighting to just stay alive is Table 15, with three players with more than 90,000 chips, one with 76,500, and nobody else with more than 36,000.
The 200 players who survived the starting flights are just getting going on Day 2 at the Borgata. Check back tomorrow to see what happened.
2014 World Poker Tour World Championship – Day 1B Chip Leaders
1. Jason Koon – 252,800
2. Athanasios Polychronopoulos – 223,100
3. Keith Lehr – 220,900
4. Lee Markholt – 217,700
5. Kevin Rabichow – 189,700
6. Bart Dowling – 186,200
7. Abe Korotki – 172,300
8. Justin Young – 166,800
9. Hans Winzeler – 157,900
10. Russell Thomas – 154,000
2014 World Poker Tour World Championship – Combined Day 1 Chip Leaders
1. Jason Koon – 252,800
2. Athanasios Polychronopoulos – 223,100
3. Keith Lehr – 220,900
4. Lee Markholt – 217,700
5. Paul Volpe – 215,300
6. Jerry Wong – 198,000
7. Brandon Steven – 195,500
8. Scott Seiver – 192,500
9. Anthony Gregg – 190,600
10. Kevin Rabichow – 189,700
