The World Poker Tour’s stop at The Venetian in Las Vegas has drawn the poker world out in droves. After setting a $500,000 guaranteed prize pool for the WPT DeepStacks Venetian, the players stormed the felt over two-Day Ones. The result? More than doubling the prize pool that will see 147 players come back on Sunday to see who gets their piece of the pie.
Day 1B Exceeds Day 1A From the Start
To be honest, the question wasn’t whether Day 1B would be bigger than Day 1A. The only question would be by how much. 224 players were on the felt at the start of action on Saturday, significantly eclipsing the 147 who were sitting down when Day 1A began on Friday. Those numbers would only get bigger as the day continued onward.
Unlimited rebuys certainly helped to punch up the numbers for the WPT DeepStacks Venetian, but the final totals were rather stunning. By the time the late registration/rebuy period ended at the dinner break, 388 players were on the clock with a slew of alternates (players who had paid their entry and were waiting for a seat) waiting. Those players on the rail waiting for entry guaranteed that the numbers would continue upwards even after the dinner break.
When the final numbers came in, the results were stunning for a $1500 ($100 juice) tournament. 451 entries were received on Day 1B, sending the total entry field to 812. The prize pool created was worth more than doubled the original guarantee ($1,161,160), giving 107 players a new entry on their Hendon Mob resume. Up top, the eventual champion of the WPT DeepStacks Venetian will received $208,335 and a pass to the WPT DeepStacks Championship (a $3000 season ending event).
Kitagawa’s Travails Lead to Triumph
One player who had some travails during the WPT DeepStacks Venetian was former WPT DeepStacks champion Kyle Kitagawa. After drawing a blank on Friday, Kitagawa was back for action on Saturday and would find himself eliminated right before the dinner break. This didn’t daunt him, however, as he was able to fire another bullet just before the rebuy period ended for the tournament.
Kitagawa’s fortunes after dinner started like the rest of his tournament – terribly. Getting down to only three big blinds at one point, Kitagawa’s fortunes would stunningly reverse over the final couple of hours of play. In that short span, Kitagawa was able to run his stack up to a stunning 162,000 in chips to have himself in respectable shape for Day 2’s proceedings on Sunday.
But who came out in the lead on Saturday’s Day 1B? There’s a bit of controversy on the WPT Live Updates page, with the updates saying Kevin Song (511,000) emerged as the chip leader and the chip counts saying Chris Doan (498,000) came out on top for the day. We will take the numbers from the chip count page in this highly unofficial rundown of the Day 1B action!
1. Chris Doan, 498,000
2. Karo Galstyan, 392,000
3. Roman Shalniuk, 325,000
4. Joe Tehan, 289,000
5. Asher Conniff, 256,000
6. Dean Hutchinson, 246,500
7. Jorge Confessor, 227,000
8. Aaron Massey, 208,000
9. Kelly Douglas, 203,000
10. Chi Hae Yoon, 198,000
Using this list, we have a highly unofficial Day 2 leaderboard that looks like this:
1. Chris Doan, 498,000
2. Henry Liang, 434,000*
3. Karo Galstyan, 392,000
4. Anthony Zinno, 359,000*
5. Roman Shalniuk, 325,000
6. Renato Spahio, 316,000*
7. Wayne Harmon, 290,000*
8. Joe Tehan, 289,000
9. Iris Angeleri, 285,000*
10. Dan Chambers, 279,000*
(* – Day 1A player)
147 players remain from the 812-entry field and they will come back to the tables at 11AM (Pacific Time) at The Venetian. The players will first have to work their way down to the money bubble (107 players), then get as close to the final table as possible. Championship Day is Monday, with the lion’s share of the prize pool handed out at that time.
