The second of two starting flights for the $3,800 World Poker Tour Choctaw Championship drew 310 entrants for ten levels of action. When play ended with 107 players, Eric Afriat finished way out in front of the field with over 800,000.
“I couldn’t have run better today,” Afriat said. “It started very tough with a tough table that had a lot of action. Finally, I found a few good hands at the right moment and that’s how I built up.”
“I had a very nice old lady named Phyllis next to me and she beat me in 29 out of 30 hands,” he added. "She took all my chips for 11 hours and I told her I was going to get her back. Finally, I got her in a hand for 243,000.”
“I’m going to take it as it comes tomorrow,” said Afriat. “But I can’t play defense, when I do that my game is weak. So, I’m going to stay on the offensive and see what happens.
Afriat’s next closest competitor is Ray Qartomy with 393,500 – less than half of Afriat’s stack. Nick Pupillo, Kasey Mills, Andrew Moreno and D.J. Alexander finished in the top half of the counts.
Who will punch their ticket to Vegas?
Defending champion Jared Jaffee survived the day but bagged a short stack. He’s joined by Aaron Massey, Allen Kessler and BJ McBrayer as players that have ground to make up on Sunday.
Combined with the 293 entrants from Day 1A, the field totaled 603 entrants. They created a prize pool of $2.1 million for the top 76 finishers. A trip to the TV table locks up $75,000 and the winner earns $361,600 and seat to the WPT World Championship.
For Sunday’s Day 2, there were 83 players from Friday’s flight for a total of 190 returning players on Sunday.
Blair Hinkle, Daniel Lowery, Ben Ludlow, Kenna James, David Dowdy and Bryan Campanello played but hit the rail through the day’s action.
Sunday’s Day 2 gets cards in the air at 11 am with another ten levels on the schedule. Then, Monday’s Day 3 will play until the field reaches the TV final table of six players and finishes on May 30th at the HyperX Arena at Luxor Las Vegas.
Top Chip Counts
- Eric Afriat – 816,500
- Ray Qartomy – 393,500
- Brian Green – 355,000
- Tomas Teran – 327,000
- Karlin Sued – 300,000
All images courtesy of World Poker Tour - shot by Enrique Malfavon.
