One day of play is in the books in the PokerStars North American Poker Tour (NAPT) Mohegan Sun Main Event. Bodog pro David Williams leads the pack and will come armed to Day 2 with 230,900 chips, nearly eight times the starting stack.
Williams and World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Vanessa Selbst are the only two players to have eclipsed the 200,000-chip plateau after Day 1 in the $5,000 buy-in NAPT event. Selbst owns a pile of 214,200 and will take to Table 7 on Thursday, where her competition includes Joe Serock and Lars Bonding. Selbst busted a player late in the day after flopping a set of deuces on an A-J-2 board; her opponent held A-J. According to coverage found on PokerNews.com, her reaction was simply stating, “I stacked him; that’s what I did.”
Spiking a two-outer on the river helped Williams’ climb up the leaderboard. Holding pocket queens on a board of 9-6-2-3, Williams watched as his all-in opponent turned over pocket deuces for a flopped set. The Bodog pro needed to catch one of the two remaining queens in the deck and, sure enough, a pretty lady hit the river. The hand pushed him to 210,000 in chips and he kept moving up the charts from there. His opposition at Table 3 on Thursday will include Gavin Smith and David Zeitlin.
Late in the day, Tom “durrrr” Dwan, decked out in Canadian gear after losing a bet on the Olympic gold medal hockey game, committed his chips on a board of A-A-J-9-9. His opponent called with Q-J and Dwan insta-mucked, ending the run of one of the lone members of Team Full Tilt in the field. Sitting in 140th place is fellow Full Tilt pro Phil Ivey, who owns a stack of 57,100 after Day 1. A total of 443 players remain out of the original starting grid of 716.
Also surviving Day 1 was Poker News Daily Guest Columnist and Foxwoods pro Bernard Lee. In an early hand, an opponent pushed all-in with pocket aces on a flop of K-Q-4. Lee immediately called with pocket kings for top set and the board ran out 4-Q. The hand boosted Lee to 55,000 in chips and he ended the day with a stack of 31,200. Lee is staying at Foxwoods during the Mohegan Sun tournament and can be found at Table 42 on Thursday alongside Shawn “sprstoner” Glines.
Doubling up on the very last hand of the evening was Team PokerStars Pro front man Daniel Negreanu. He came out on the winning end of a race with A-K against pocket jacks after spiking a king on the river. Negreanu owns the 271st largest chip stack in the NAPT Mohegan Sun Main Event entering Day 2 at 33,600.
Here are the top 10 chip stacks in the NAPT Mohegan Sun Main Event:
1. David Williams – 230,900
2. Vanessa Selbst – 214,200
3. Lars Bonding – 177,100
4. Matt Woodward – 165,500
5. Firas Massouh – 157,000
6. Dennis Tuttle – 155,300
7. Brandon Cantu – 145,500
8. Eric Levesque – 134,000
9. Christopher Lindh – 128,400
10. Clayton Mozdzen – 127,700
Other notable names in the top 100 include:
11. Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy – 125,100
14. Todd Terry – 115,700
27. Jared Jaffee – 100,500
28. Tyler “puffinmypurp” Reiman – 99,800
31. Kyle Zartman – 98,800
42. Eric “EFro” Froehlich – 89,900
45. Quinn Do – 89,400
46. Tom “kingofcards” Marchese – 89,300
50. James Akenhead – 85,300
52. Lee Markholt – 83,900
54. Vanessa Rousso – 83,200
72. Brian Lemke – 76,000
76. Ravi “govshark2” Raghavan – 75,800
78. Gavin Smith – 75,600
83. Nick “Grip” Grippo – 72,500
88. McLean Karr – 72,000
96. Shawn “sprstoner” Glines – 68,000
99. Gavin Griffin – 67,600
Other PokerStars pros remaining include Jason Mercier and Dennis Phillips. Up for grabs is a top prize of $750,000 and the tournament will air on ESPN2 in the United States on May 10th. The top 104 players, or 15% of the field, will finish in the money and the tournament crowns a champion on Sunday.
