Mid-way through level 7 we noticed a large pot brewing as we toured the tables.

The hand not yet completed, the board showed with with only two players left in the hand, Sergei Gurin and Alex Foxen.

We learned after the hand that Sergei c-bet 3,500 on the flop, and Alex just called.

On the turn Sergei bet 7,000, and again Alex made the call, at which point a  came down on the river.

This time Sergei checked. Alex tossed in 26,700. Sergei thought about it for a while, then came in over the top with a shove all in. Alex seemed shocked at first, but after a few minutes he decided to make the call.

Alex:

Sergei:

Alex’s jack-high flush trumped Sergei’s pair of Kings, and enlarged Alex’s stack quite a bit. In fact, although he only arrived at 5:30pm (just before the dinner break), it is likely that this hand catapulted Alex into the chip lead, with a stack approaching 200,000. And all this after less than an hour of table time! Sometimes it pays to show up later in the day!

This proves the value of the Main Event’s all-day registration, providing players with the flexibility to join the action at their own pace. And keep in mind, registration is still open on Day 2 up to the end of level 2!

We’ve had a photographer in-house during the day to document all of the great Halloween costumes worn by Playground staff – here are a few of the good ones today.

After six 60-minute levels we have a new chip leader, Nghi Van Tran. While our leaderboard is made up exclusively of players who have amassed over 130,000 chips, the needle hasn’t moved very much in the last few hours, indicating that the field is still very competitive.

Registration is now up to 351 entries (including 46 re-entries) and 258 players left in the action.

As they day moves on, players continue to enter and re-enter the tournament, and in the last hour before the upcoming dinner break we’ve seen names like Tommy Nguyen (this year’s Monster Stack champion in the WSOP in Vegas), High roller David Peters, and Matthew Wilkins join. In addition, several more locally-known players like Patrick Braga, Alex Allison, and Zheng-Yi “Ziggy” Xie have also taken to the felts.

Level 6 at the WPT Main Event Day 1c is winding down. There are some 252 players still in the stint with two levels still remaining. Here are some photos of the players taken just prior to their dinner break.

Over at table 26 we walked past a hand that was almost complete, with a board showing . It was heads up between Jonathan Marrie and Danny Boyaci.

Jonathan was utg and had been raising most of the hand. It was soon clear why, Danny Boyaci ended up calling his 7,000 chip raise (and soon after mucking his chips). Jonathan was holding a nut flush since the turn, and he pulled in a pot of about 30,000.