The starting days of the 2014 MSPT at the Belle of Baton Rouge Casino & Hotel in Louisiana have wrapped up. There were 55 entrants on Friday Day 1a and Day 1b attracted another 63 players to bring the total number of entrants for the tournament to 118, which meant the event passed its $100k guarantee.
The first day saw Austin Bursavich at the top of the chip leaderboard, bagging 187k in chips at the end of the day’s play. Rounding out the top 5 on Day 1a were Will Souther, Nicholas Graphia, Jack Carona, and Claudia Crawford, although only two players finished with a stack of more than 100k in chips. In total, 18 players survived to come back and battle it out on Day 2 of the MSPT Belle of Baton Rouge event.
Chip leader Bursavich has made a name for himself this tournament having not cashed prior to this on the live circuit. His Day 1a was obviously very good for him even though it seemed from his opponent’s perspective that he was playing every hand but always had the goods.
Just like Day 1a, there were just 18 players that survived the second starting day with chip leader Erica Sumner finishing with a stack above 200k in chips. On Day 1b a key hand occurred during the level 9 blind level when Sumner got a lot of action holding pocket Aces. She three bet an early position open but another player didn’t give her bet very much credit, responding with a four bet shove on the button. Alexander, the original raiser shoved with his pocket Queens, Sumner snap called, and she also had the button crushed with pocket Tens. The board ran out well for Aces and she became the massive chip leader nearing the end of day’s play.
It was a particularly unlucky day for Matt Alexander, who is a MSPT Team Pro player. He has been eliminated during the first day’s play of the last three live events he has played. Obviously, busting out with pocket Queens against pocket Aces is going to help change his bad fortune.
According to sources from MSPT, Sumner is actually the first female in MSPT history to have the chip lead heading into the final day of play, so she is already setting records. With chips to play with, she will be giving herself every chance of winning the tournament for a share of the $100K+ prize pool.
Although it should go without saying that in terms of winning the tournament she doesn’t have it easy, there were two other players that finished day 1b’s play with more than 100k in chips, Michael Benton with around 145k and Kou Vang with around 117k, so they are there or thereabouts. Other notable stacks at the end of Day 1b were David Holmes with around 90k, Jeff Grimes with 86k, Allen Kessler with 82k and Gene Dudek also with around 82k in chips.
All 36 remaining players who advanced from the first days play of MSPT Belle of Baton Rouge will return to commence play at 10am local time on Sunday. Day 2 is the final day whereby a champion will be decided. With 60-minute blind levels at the final table, it should ensure plenty of poker is played, assuming the majority of players have similar stacks.
The stop off at Louisiana is actually a first for the MSPT, this event has come right after Running Aces Harness Park in Columbus, Minnesota. This live tourney attracted 353 entrants for a prize pool of over $350k. Players who couldn’t make the trek to Louisiana will have many other MSPT events to play throughout 2014.