Louise Francoeur Bags Chip Lead After Day 1 of WPT Ladies Championship

Photo: Louise Francoeur Leads After Day 1

Day 1 of the WPT Ladies Championship has come to an end with 25 minutes remaining at Level 17.

A total of 578 players joined the field for this event creating a prize pool of $560,660 but only 72 of them bagged up as soon as the money bubble burst.

Leading the way is Louise Francoeur with an impressive stack of 1,003,000 (125 big blinds). She is followed by Karen Donnelly with 646,000 (80 big blinds) and Shirin Oskooi rounds up the top three with 548,000 (68 big blinds).

The full list of official chip counts will be posted later tonight, but in the meantime, here is a preview of the top of the leaderboard:

Louise Francoeur – 1,003,000 (125 bb)
Karen Donnelly – 646,000 (80 bb)
Shirin Oskooi – 548,000 (68 bb)
Cindy Spier – 543,000 (67 bb)
Jamie Kerstetter – 512,000 (64 bb)

Photo: Jamie Kerstetter Fifth in Chips

Other notables to find a bag include Melanie Weisner (388,000), Katie Lindsay (324,000), Kathy Liebert (195,000), Ebony Kenney (176,000), Nemo Zhou (154,000) and Esther Taylor (100,000)

The 72 survivors are guaranteed to take home at least $1,941. Here is the full list of the payouts they’re playing for:

1st: $105,136
2nd: $70,008
3rd: $51,538
4th: $38,350
5th: $28,847
6th: $21,934
7th: $16,860
8th: $13,101
9th-10th: $10,291
11th-12th: $8,173
13th-14th: $6,632
15th-16th: $5,455
17th-20th: $4,548
21st-24th: $3,846
25th-32nd: $3,300
33rd-40th: $2,873
41st-48th: $2,541
49th-56th: $2,284
57th-64th: $2,087
65th-72nd: $1,941

Action will resume on Saturday December 17th at 1 p.m. local time with 25 minutes remaining at Level 17 with blinds of 4,000/8,000 and with a 8,000 big blind ante. The schedule says they will play down to the final six. (That schedule could change at the Tournament Director’s discretion.)

The Day 2 seat draw will be posted before the start of play once the tournament staff has released it, and we’ll post it here in the WPT Live Updates. Stay tuned to WPT.com for our continuing coverage of the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas.