Keeling Out Front as 16 Advance From Day 1a of HPT East Chicago
A total of 97 players hit the felt for Day 1a of the HPT Ameristar East Chicago $1,650 Main Event, and after fifteen levels of play, just 16 remained, with Robert Keeling and his 422,000 stack leading the survivors.
Keeling's climb to the top came with some good fortune, as he found himself all-in and well behind early in Level 14 (1,500/3,000/3,000). He had his last 150,000 or so in chips in preflop with pocket nines, but Michael Banducci, who spent most of the day atop the counts, held aces. Luckily for Keeling, a nine on the flop sent a more than 100 big blind pot his way, and he kept the momentum going all the way to the Day 1a chip lead.
The rest of the top three includes Andy Ernstein (383,000) and Henry Zou (322,000), while Niel Mittelman (200,000), WSOP Bracelet winner Alex Ziskin (148,000), Kevin Maahs (83,000) and Michael VanderWoude (70,000) all managed to end the night with chips for Day 2.
WSOP Main Event champ Greg Raymer was an early casualty of the day's action, while former HPT Ameristar East Chicago champ Darryl Ronconi found no luck today, either. Craig Casino ran up a healthy stack for a while, but just before the dinner break, he found his top two pair cracked by the set of Jeffrey Orlowski, and he busted one hand after the dinner break.
Others to fall short of a Day 2 bag include Edward Ochana, two-time WSOP Bracelet winner Tom Koral, 2019 WSOPC Potowatomi Main Event champ Richard Bai, Mike Shanahan, and Daniel Sepiol.
The next opportunity for players to find a bag for Day 2 will be tomorrow's Day 1b flight, which will kick off at 2 p.m. local time. A third and final flight starts at Noon on Saturday, and all players that manage to bag up chips will return on Sunday at 11 a.m. to play down to the televised final table of nine. Stay tuned to PokerNews for continuing coverage as we get one step closer to crowning our first HPT champion of Season XVI!