Stephen Graner Shines Bright Atop Day 1B Field

Call it fate, call it serendipity, whatever you call it, it was certainly fun for the fans of Bay 101 to be able to watch Stephen Graner (pictured), who spent the entire day sat in the middle of the feature table. Situated on the rail, surrounded by spectators, Graner put on a clinic for the duration of Day 1B, collecting two Shooting Star bounties and finishing far out front of all of the Day 1A and Day 1B survivors with 332,700. Thanks to the bounties and the $10,000 chipleader bonus, Graner already has $15,000 in his pocket, but with this stack he is looking to make a deep run and score a much bigger payday.

Graner vaulted to the top of the counts courtesy of his first Shooting Star bounty, Ari Engel, but it was his sparring with his other bounty, James Calderaro, which caused the biggest stir.

First, the two clashed in a pot where everyone at the table was convinced Graner misclicked with a large opening raise and Calderaro was convinced Graner was not bluffing on a river shove which caused Calderaro to lay down top pair with top kicker. Graner gave up a little information about the hand, but not everything.

“It was not a misclick, I just did not say anything when they were talking about it,” Graner explained. As for if he had it or not, he was a little more vague.

“It’s hard for me to have something there.”

Graner will admit a great run of luck and cards did play a big part in his “exceptional” day.  “I got aces literally nine times,” he admitted. He was also on the right end of flips, like when he eliminated Calderaro to collect his second bounty of the day.

He is certainly glad to have more money in his pocket than anyone else so far, but for him the experience is hopefully far from over.

“Lot of work to be done,” he said.

Graner is correct about that. Day 2 play will begin at 12 pm noon PT on Wednesday, a change from the previously printed schedule. The 264-player field will have another long day ahead as they play down to the final 36 contenders.

Joining Graner on the list of Day 1B survivors is Charlie Carrel, who challenged Graner for the chip lead late in the day, but ended up bagging 320,800. The list of notable names on the Day 1B counts is lengthy too, including Shooting Stars like Mike Sexton, Lon McEachern, Bruce Buffer, Jesse Sylvia, and hometown hero and WPT Champions Club member Pat Lyons.

With 445 entries on Day 1B, it was a record field for the longstanding event on the WPT. There were 806 total entries, which resulted in a prize pool of more than $5.7 million. The 145 survivors from today will join the 119 players who made it through Day 1A for Day 2 action.

On Monday, there were 14 Shooting Stars who advanced to Day 2 with Garrett Greer leading the way on the leaderboard with 219,000. Day 1B saw 19 Shooting Stars advance. The big stack of today’s group was Rainer Kempe who bested Greer with 284,300.

Day 1B had 45 Shooting Star bounties to start the day. The long list of pros who signed t-shirts and headed out of the tournament once and for all includes last year’s California Swing winner Ankush Mandavia, Carlos Mortensen, Ari Engel, Tony Dunst, Ema Zajmovic, Loni Harwood, Joe Hachem, and Antonio Esfandiari.

Some of the other players whose run in this tournament came to an early close today include James Romero, Cate Hall, Taylor von Kriegenbergh, Phil Laak, and Dan Colman.

So far there are four players who have collected two Shooting Star bounties so far this tournament. Graner and Calderaro are two. Andrew Dean and Day 1A player Justin Young are the others. Calderaro obviously did not make it through the day, nor did Dean, but the other two did and will continue to try to add to their tallies when play resumes at noon on Wednesday.

A full list of chip counts will be posted once it is available. Until then, here is a look at the unofficial top five:

1. Stephen Graner – 332,700
2. Charlie Carrel – 320,800
3. Igor Yaroshevskyy – 286,200
4. Rainer Kempe (pictured below) – 284,300
5. Zach Hyman – 255,000

Photography by Joe Giron / Poker Photo Archive