After 16 levels of play lasting 8 hours, this evening’s flight has officially come to a close. 253 entries (including 46 total re-entries) started the flight at 6pm, and now only 50 remain.

These 50 players all have the opportunity to return for Day 2, coming up on Monday, October 29 at 3pm. Indeed, if they so choose, any of these players can return again tomorrow or Monday to start fresh with another Day 1 flight, possibly finishing with a larger stack to put them in a better starting position on Day 2.  The three final Day 1 flights occur Sunday (at 12pm and 6pm) and Monday at 11am (which is a Turbo flight).

Today, two players (Fraddy Gonzolez and Gino Frenette) separated themselves from the rest, and currently sit atop the leaderboard with approximately 450,000 in chips. Day 1D also had another several players finish in the 250,000 chip range, putting them in solid a solid position to start Day 2.

View the full Combined Day 1 Results here.

See below for images of some of the competitors that ended the day with us here at Playground Poker Club, starting with many of the chip leaders, as well as some group shots taken in the heat of the action.

Halfway through level 14 players at table 82 saw an unusually rare hand. In it, a full house (kings full of tens) was busted by quad tens, and they were busted on the river no less. A nasty beat, to be sure. Steve Daraiche was the player on the receiving end of the bad luck, and Gino Frenette benefited from it.

Flop:

Steve was utg, betting 12.5K. He was raised by Gino to 30K, and Steve called.

Turn:

Steve got his money in when he wanted it, going all in. The poker gods had other ideas though. After Gino’s call, both players flipped over pocket pairs.

Gino:

Steve:

The situation looked dire for Gino – that is until the river was dealt! It was the only card in the deck that could help him, the fourth and final nail in the coffin for Steve: the .

The table gasped in amazement, but Steve took it like a pro as he packed up his things. He was heard saying that if faced with the same situation he would do the same thing, and all at the table agreed he had made the right play. Sometimes there is nothing you can do!

After six hours of play the initial field of 253 has been whittled down to less than 100 with only four rounds to go in today’s event. Unfortunately for Pascal Monarque, not only did he surrender top spot, he busted out completely at some point during level 11.

The current chip leaders are listed below:

Just after midnight, as level 11 turned to level 12, there was a three-way pot at table 82 that saw two players (Shaui Zeng and Yann Prevost-Dumont) go all in against a larger stack (Gino Frenette), resulting in an early exit for Shuai and a triple-up for Yann.

With the blinds at 600 / 1,200, the hand started with four players seeing the flop after a min-raise of 2,500.

Flop:

Four checks later, a was dealt on fourth street. Shuai made it 3,500 to go, and after 1 player folded it was a three-way race.

The river was dealt a , and again Shuai led out with a bet of 11K. He was called by Yann and then raised significantly by Gino to 60K. Gino easily covered both Shuai and Yann’s stack of approximately 20K and 15K, respectively.

In the end, both smaller stacks made the call.

Gino:

Shuai:

Yann:

So, while Shuai was leading after the flop, the turn didn’t bring him any good news, giving Gino a straight and Yann a boat. Shuai’s night was done, and Gino was lucky he wasn’t facing off against opponents with larger stacks.

The clock has just struck midnight, however players in the WPT500 Day 1D still have a little way to go before they can call it a night. We have just begun round 12, meaning another 5 levels of play remain. A short break is scheduled to take place in around half an hour, at which point we will publish an update on the current top stacks from the flight.

Photographs from levels 10-11:

After 5.5 hours of play, we have reached the cut-off point for registration. Now that the dust has settled, we can report that there were 253 entries (including 46 re-entries), providing of total of 7,590,000 chips in play.

With an average chip stack of 65K there is still lots of poker left, so good luck to all of the 116 players still in the hunt for a shot at Day 2! And if you haven’t had a chance to join us at Playground Poker Club yet this week, don’t worry! There are still three chances to play in the WPT $500 + $50 Single Re-entry and to make it to Day 2. There are two flights occurring tomorrow (Sunday) and a 4-hour turbo flight on Monday at 11am.

Day 2 commences Monday at 3pm.