A busy day at bestbet Jacksonville and Day 1b of the WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble resulted in 75 players bagging chips to join the 51 players who bagged on Day 1a.
Steven Snyder (pictured) from Charlotte, North Carolina is the overall chip leader with 328,000 following a day that steadily brought him to the top. For those unfamiliar with the chip leader, Snyder is an accomplished tournament player with $762,579 in career earnings. In 2016, Snyder won a WSOP Circuit Main Event in his home state and collected $241,198. Snyder is looking to cash for the first time on the World Poker Tour.
Since the summer, Snyder has taken some time away from the game and felt his play on Day 1b reflected his high energy level.
“It’s always good to take some time off,” Snyder said. “It’s just like sports. When I take time off and go back at it, I’m good when I first come back. You play better. That’s kind of what happened today. Obviously, I ran very well but I also didn’t make any mistakes at all.”
During his time off from poker, Snyder noted he spent time playing music and hanging out with his three children.
A key hand for Snyder came midway through play in a three-way pot that involved Mike Dentale. With 100,000 in the middle going to the river on a board of 
, Season XV bestbet Bounty Scramble runner-up Richard Malone checked in early position upon seeing the 
. Snyder bet 27,000 in the cutoff and Dentale called on the button as did Malone. 
for a flush was good enough for Snyder to scoop the pot and propel him to the finish line as chip leader.
Six of the players who join Snyder in Day 2 are bestbet Bounties. 15 entered on Day 1a and the six who advanced accompany the four from yesterday.
Those six are Jessica Dawley, Loni Harwood, Allison Hollander, Jamie Kerstetter, actor/comedian Kevin Pollak, and Tristan Wade.
Hollander is the biggest stack among them with 105,500. Pollak isn’t too far behind with 90,000, a solid figure considering he lost close to half of his stack on one of the first hands of the day. Before Day 1b started, Pollak discussed a few topics, including his excitement to be a bounty in this event.
Dawley rode a wave of all-in wins to a bag of 55,500 in her pursuit of bettering her 11th place finish in Season XVI’s Bounty Scramble and repeat finish as the last bounty standing. Midway through the day, Dawley spoke about her eclectic hoodie collection which will no doubt be on display for at least another day.
Some who were not fortunate enough to survive the day were defending champion Paul Petraglia, and other WPT Champions Club members including Jonathan Jaffe, Andjelko Andrejevic, and Erkut Yilmaz. Current Hublot WPT Player of the Year points leader Tony Ruberto did not make the Day 2 cut and will not be adding points to his lead this weekend.
The $341,486 first-place prize and 1,000 Player of the Year points are what all players have their eye on. 45 players will make the money during tomorrow’s play to start the process of divvying up the $1,648,280 prize pool created by the 356 total entries.
The plan for Day 2 is to start at 12 p.m. local time and play through six 60-minute levels followed by three 90-minute levels. The Action Clock will be in play one table from the money.
Photography by Joe Giron / PokerPhotoArchive.com
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