The second of two starting flights for the $5,000 World Poker Tour bestbet Scramble drew 200 entrants to up the overall field to 355 entrants. Saturday’s flight passed the mark set on Day 1A before the second break of the day and after ten levels of play Kevin Javier leads the field of 72 surviving players with 378,500.
Phu Vo looked to have the lead but lost a couple small pots at the end of play. “My day was up and down. I had some bad dips and then chipped up,” Vo said. He said he avoided any big showdowns and mostly chipped up little by little.
Alec Torelli finished the day fifth in chips and was all smiles after bagging up chips. “It went amazing. I won $20 from a prop bet (needling a tablemate),” Torelli said.
“I had a lot of things go right. I think I played pretty well in certain spots,” he continued. “Ironically, a lot of the spots were small and subtle that were actually interesting and the big spots kind of played themselves where I came out on top.”
“There were a few good spots where I zigged and zagged really well that I’m really proud of,” Torelli said. “That’s always the way tournaments go and I’m really happy with the result.”
Javier came out of nowhere in the closing minutes of the day to snag the chip lead. He had under 200,000 but in the last three hands of the night he virtually doubled up.
Field combines for $1.6 million prize pool
The combined 365 entrants juiced the prize pool north of $1.66 million for the top 46 finishers. The min-cash comes in at $9,400, a trip to the final table locks up $41,500 and the winner earns $351,650 plus a seat to the season-ending WPT Championship at Wynn Las Vegas.
ClubWPT qualifier John Thompson played his flight today but fell short of surviving the day. He made a final stand holding pocket aces, got out-flopped by pocket nines and he was eliminated. He got to play next to Tony Dunst and said, “He was really short and I had two chances to felt him, but he’s too smart.”
Dunst, Maurice Hawkins, Cord Garcia Justin Zaki and Jake Schwartz all took a shot in Day 1B but did not survive the day.
The combined 126 players resume play at noon on Sunday and play another ten levels. The field is expected to hit the money by midday and then begins the long march to final table of six that resumes for a live streamed finale on Tuesday at 2:00pm.
Top Ten Chip Counts
- Kevin Javier – 378,500
- Qi You – 374,000
- Phu Bo – 345,000
- Brian Arbaugh – 320,500
- Alec Torelli – 308,000
- Carlos Guerro – 291,000
- Brian Senie – 272,000
- Josh Kay – 267,000
- Michael Phillips – 245,500
- Ewan Leatham – 240,000
