Tuan Nguyen leads 88 survivors into the second day of the WPTDeepStacks Thunder Valley with a commanding chip lead
With just a few stops left over just under two months, the WPTDeepStacks season is approaching its end. Thunder Valley Casino Resort in Lincoln, California is currently playing host to the popular poker series and the $1,100 Main Event has just finished its starting flights phase.
The tournament attracted 678 entries over three starting flights. The field crushed the $500,000 guarantee to create an overall prize pool of $675,660. The champion, whose name will become clear tomorrow night, will take home a top prize of $121,000. The first-place payout also includes a $3,000 ticket into the season-ending championship event.
As many as 88 players made it through the three starting flights. They are set to return shortly to the host casino and play Day 2 of the tournament. The first minutes of play will be really important as the money bubble is just three eliminations away. That said, the top 85 finishers will leave the tournament with a payout, min-cashes starting from $1,780.
Tuan Nguyen Leads the 88 Survivors into Day 2
Of the 88 hopefuls still in the hunt for the title and the accompanying first-place prize, it will be Tuan Nguyen who will enter Day 2 as the overall chip leader. The player entered the Main Event through Day 1C and amassed a hefty stack to secure a comfortable entry into the second day of play.
Nguyen is starting Day 2 competition with 546,000 in chips. There is quite a gap between the chip leader and the player with the second largest start-of-the-day stack. That player is Tuiofo Hunkin with 393,000 in chips. He, too, entered the Main Event through its third starting flight on Saturday. Day 1C entry Yury Klimenkov rounds out the top three stacks at this stage of the game.
There are quite a few former WPTDeepStacks Champions in the hunt for another title from the major series, with some of those being Day 1C’s Mimi Luu, Matt Montgomery, and Jasthi Kumar, and Day 1B’s Alex Greenblatt and J.C. Tran. Former WPT Main Tour Champion Tyler Patterson is looking to add a WPTDeepStacks title to his portfolio.
The second day of contention kicks off at noon local time at the host casino. This is the tournament’s penultimate day of play, and the name of the champion will be known at some point tomorrow.
The WPTDeepStacks will next be off to the sunny island nation of Malta for a thrilling poker festival that will be jointly organized with online poker operator 888poker. The festival kicks off tomorrow, while the €1,000 Main Event with a guaranteed prize pool of €200,000 is slated for April 11-14. Casino Malta in St. Julian’s will play host to the event.
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