Day 1A Ends with John Miller and Mark Toulouse Leading 39 Survivors

Photo:  John Miller won three of the final four pots of the night to finish with the Day 1A chip lead.

There were 199 entries here on Day 1A of WPTDeepStacks Choctaw, and after 15 levels, 39 players bagged up chips for Day 2.

The biggest stack belonged to John Miller, who won three of the final four hands of the night to finish with the Day 1A chip lead.

The full list of official chip counts can be found in an earlier post, but here is a look at the top of the leaderboard, as only four players bagged up more than 300K in chips:

1.  John Miller  –  501,000  (125 bb)
2.  Mark Toulouse  –  471,000  (118 bb)
3.  Toby Floyd  –  321,000  (80 bb)
4.  Ronald Tabor  –  314,000  (79 bb)

Photo:  ClubWPT Diamond Member Mark Toulouse has cashed in the last two WPT main tour events held here at Choctaw Casino & Resort.

Mark Toulouse is a ClubWPT Diamond Member who is part of the “Stream Team,” a group of regular players on ClubWPT who were given that nickname by WPT Anchor Lynn Gilmartin. Gilmartin had the members of the Stream Team send her photos of themselves playing on ClubWPT, and then she would share those photos on her own live stream.

Toulouse has already cashed in the last two WPT main tour events held here at the Choctaw Casino & Resort, and he feels even better about this one.

“This is one of the first tournaments in a long time where I chipped up nearly every level, all day long,” said Toulouse. “I finished 39th and 71st in the last two WPTs, but today was a better day than I had in either of those two.”

Another player in today’s field was reigning WPTDeepStacks Thunder Valley champion Kyle Kitagawa, who is currently eighth in the WPTDeepStacks Player of the Year race and looking to add to his POY points here. Kitagawa is only 300 points behind POY leader Albert Knafo, and depending on the total prizepool (which we won’t know until registration closes for tomorrow’s flight), Kitagawa may be able to earn that many points with a seventh-place finish. Unfortunately, Kitagawa busted today, so he will need to take another shot tomorrow on Day 1B.

Day 1B begins tomorrow (Saturday) at 12:00 noon Central Daylight Time, and registration remains open with unlimited re-entries until the end of the dinner break (about 7:30 pm). Return to WPT.com for continuing coverage from WPTDeepStacks Choctaw.

Photography by Joe Giron / PokerPhotoArchive.com

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