Vlad Darie Among Chip Leaders After Strong Day 1 in Event #79: $3,000 No-Limit Holdem
Romania's Vlad Darie bagged the chip lead in Event #79: $3,000 No-Limit Holdem at the 2019 World Series of Poker held in the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino. Darie managed to end the day with 284,000 in front of him and he is likely the chip leader after the first day of play. Other players that bagged big include Andras Nemeth (264,000) and David Margi (263,500).
There are 148 players remaining, but only 101 of those will make the money, with the min-cash worth $4,506 and the winner of the event taking home the WSOP gold bracelet and the first-place prize of $380,090.
Paul Volpe also bagged chips after he lost them all... literally. Volpe looked in front of him and all his chips were gone. "I was afraid I put them in my pocket, but I can't find them anywhere," Volpe said upon discovering his chips were gone.
Volpe's neighbor just won a big pot the hand before and the general consensus at the table was that he accidentally took Volpe's chips as well when he raked in the pot. Volpe eventually received 18,500 from his neighbor and play continued. He eventually bagged 46,500.
Day 2 action
The day started with about 100 players on the clock but there were 671 entries made in the tournament when the registration period ended. Just 162 of them remain after ten one-hour levels and one of the players that ended the day with chips is defending champion Diogo Veiga. The Portuguese won the tournament last year when it was one of the few tournaments on the schedule that featured the big blind ante format and bagged 65,000 today.
Another player that bagged chips is Dan Zack. The player-of-the-year candidate found his second bag of the day in this format after he bagged chips in Event #78: $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha Bounty. This means that Zack starts at noon with Day 2 of the Omaha tournament and if he manages to still have chips at 2 p.m. local time he will have to multi-table both tournaments.
Others were less fortunate and didn't make it to Day 2. Norman Macdonald was one of the first players eliminated in the tournament and he wasn't able to make it to the second level of the day. Tony Miles, Pierre Neuville, Matt Berkey, Kitty Kuo, Mustapha Kanit, Faraz Jaka, Ryan Leng, Dietrich Fast, Dominik Nitsche, 888 poker ambassador Martin Jacobson, and Calvin Anderson also weren't able to find a bag.
Larry Greenberg escaped elimination in the first orbit of the tournament when he ran with pocket aces into pocket jacks. A jack fell on the flop and Greenberg was left with just 600 chips which were six big blinds in the first level. Greenberg managed to come back from the bad beat he received and he managed to end the day with 80,000 in chips which will be 40 big blinds at the start of Day 2.
Other players that survived the first day are two-time bracelet winners Athanasios Polychronopoulos (221,000) and Kristen Bicknell (192,000), three-time bracelet winners Justin Bonomo (170,500) and David Pham (133,000), Alex Keating (87,500), Rainer Kempe (80,500), Michael Soyza (75,500), and Christoph Vogelsang (70,500).
Play will resume on Wednesday, July 10, with the blinds at 1,000/2,000 and a big blind ante of 2,000. The plan is to play another ten one-hour levels with a 15-minute break after every two levels and a one-hour dinner break after the sixth level of the day.
PokerNews will be on site to give you the latest details on the tournament.