May 1st saw the second in a string of 5 back-to-back Phase 1 tournaments in the partypoker Million North America. This was the $275 version of a Phase 1 that saw players begin with 50,000 tournament chips and play down to 5% of the total entries. In this case, there were 97 entries (80 entries, 17 re-entries), which meant that 5 players would qualify a stack for Day 1 in the Million North America.
When the dust settled after 21 levels of play, Sebastien Proulx and Aaron Shepard had both qualified for Day 1 with stacks above 1.5M in chips to carry forward and three other players – Ali Zakeri, Ho Kwan Jeremy Yip, and Jean-Marc Le Bouthillier had also gone through. This brings the total number of Phase 1 seats in the event to just under 160, only a few of which have been used in Online Day 1s.
Today, Wednesday, and Thursday bring 3 more Phase 1 opportunities for players, this time of the $550 variety. In these final 3 Phase 1s in the tournament, players will start with 100,000 chips and play down until 10% of the total field remains. The numbers in the Tuesday and Wednesday Phase 1s will be bolstered by a massive 81 seats that were awarded in last night’s Mega Overlay, including the 30 seats added to the prize pool.