It was a busy day at The Venetian on Wednesday as third and final flight of the $1,100 buy-in MSPT Main Event catered to long lines and alternates. In fact, every seat in the house (there were 680 of them) were devoted to the tournament for more than nine hours and were sold out two times over as 1,432 total entrants tried their luck.
Along with the 839 entries from Day 1A and 1,002 from 1B, that brought the total field up to 3,273 runners. That made it the largest MSPT event in history by surpassing the previous record of 2,887 entries set last year in this same event.
The large turnout created a $3,207,540 prize pool and cruised past the advertised $2.5 million guarantee. Of the 404 players that’ll return for Day 2 (93 from 1A, 117 1B, and 194 1C), 351 of them will get paid a minimum of $2,085 while the eventual winner is slated to walk away with $440,029.
After 15 levels of play, WPT champ Taylor von Kriegenbergh bagged the chip lead among the 194 survivors with a stack of 536,500. That is just quite a bit ahead of both Day 1A and 1B chip leaders Ludovic Riehl (370,000) and Mike Shanahan bagged (377,500). Von Kriegenbergh, who won the 2011 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open for more than $1.1 million, is seeking his first MSPT cash.
Others who bagged big stacks on Day 1C were Kurt Jewell (410,000), Kevin Grabel (325,000), Bob Mather (297,000), and Sheng Ye (270,500).
Likewise, former Marriage Boot Camp host Jim Carroll (232,000), former NFL star Richard Seymour (200,500), last year’s runner-up Mukul Pahuja (196,500), MSPT Season 6 Maryland Live! champ Greg Himmelbrand (109,500), and the better half of the aforementioned Bob Mathers, Candance Collins (91,000), all advanced to Day 2.
Among those to try and fall on Day 1C were Poker Hall of Famer Scotty Nguyen; MSPT Players of the Year Rich Alsup, Mark Hodge and Pat Steele; former champs Ari Engel, Dan “DQ” Hendrickson and Jon Kim; and defending champ Thomas Boivin.
The Belgian fell just after dinner when he got his short stack all in preflop holding the ace-eight of spade. Boivin was up against two opponents holding small pocket pairs, but despite holding two overs Boivin was unable to get there.
Day 2 of the MSPT Venetian will kick off at 11 a.m. on Thursday with the plan of playing through the money bubble on the way to the final table. Be sure to join us then as we bring you all the action and eliminations straight from the tournament floor.