Day 1K: 27 Players Survive; Thu Nguyen Dominates the Field with 850K

Photo:  Edwin Contreras (left) poses for a photo with massive chipleader Thu Nguyen near the end of the day. Nguyen has 23% more chips than Owen Crowe, who has the second-largest stack in the tournament.

Day 1K comes to an end with 27 players remaining, and the chipleader is Thu Nguyen with 850,000 in chips (142 big blinds).

With 333 entries in Day 1K, and another 147 in Turbo Flight 1L (which is still in progress) the total for the tournament so far is 2,518. The prizepool is up to $1,259,000, easily exceeding the $1 million guarantee, and there are still two more starting flights to be played tomorrow.

The final 12% of each starting field finishes in the money, guaranteed at least $800 each, and the final 8% advance to Day 2. Today that happened at 9:22 pm with 13:00 remaining in Level 19, with blinds at 4,000-8,000 and a 1,000 ante.

Here are the official chip counts for the 27 survivors from Day 1K:

1.  Thu Nguyen  –  850,000  (142 bb)
2.  Owen Crowe  –  690,000  (115 bb)
3.  Brett Murray  –  561,000  (94 bb)
4.  Chris Hanley  –  229,000  (38 bb)
5.  Paul W. Lee  –  209,000  (35 bb)
6.  Brandon Le  –  208,000  (35 bb)
7.  Benjamin Chung  –  199,000  (33 bb)
8.  Kareem Marshall  –  194,000  (32 bb)
9.  Edvin Setaghian  –  190,000  (32 bb)
10.  Pui Sum  –  169,000  (28 bb)
11.  Danny Wong  –  151,000  (25 bb)
12.  Rif Dagher  –  150,000  (25 bb)
13.  Prabhu Mogulla  –  136,000  (23 bb)
14.  Long Do  –  112,000  (19 bb)
15.  Javier Canal  –  109,000  (18 bb)
16.  Kenneth Morrison  –  98,000  (16 bb)
17.  Victor Paredes  –  95,000  (16 bb)
18.  Erlene Geller  –  86,000  (14 bb)
19.  Ken Bachrach  –  81,000  (14 bb)
20.  Michael Ignacio  –  80,000  (13 bb)
21.  Jacob Rigel  –  79,000  (13 bb)
22.  Eriche Karle  –  78,000  (13 bb)
23.  Henry Keokot  –  74,000  (12 bb)
24.  Rick Klein  –  61,000  (10 bb)
25.  Edwin Contreras  –  59,000  (10 bb)
26.  Zu Zhou  –  38,000  (6 bb)
27.  Alex Hua  –  10,000  (2 bb)

And here are the 13 players who were eliminated inside the money:

28th.  Brian Gorman  –  $1,000
29th.  Calvin Chan  –  $1,000
30th.  Stephen Kujubu  –  $1,000
31st.  Huy Nguyen  –  $1,000
32nd.  Dennis DeFeo  –  $1,000
33rd.  Onur Unsal  –  $1,000
34th.  Le Banh  –  $800
35th.  William Bannon  –  $800
36th.  Allan Cook  –  $800
37th.  Ken Holcombe  –  $800
38th.  John Sonkoly  –  $800
39th.  Ben Azad  –  $800
40th.  Huy Trinh  –  $800

Turbo Flight 1L is currently underway with 29 players remaining from a field of 147 — the final 18 will cash, and the final 12 will advance to Day 2.

Day 1M begins tomorrow at 11:00 am, with Turbo Flight 1N beginning at 5:00 pm — the final two starting flights. The official prizepool won’t be available until after registration closes in the final flight.

Day 2 begins Tuesday, May 30th at 1:00 pm. The nine-handed final table (which will be live-streamed at WPT.com) begins at 3:00 pm on Wednesday, May 31st.

Photography by Antonio Abrego