Day 1A of the World Poker Tour bestbet Bounty Scramble was full of excitement from start to finish. The $2,500 bounties placed on the heads of 21 players made things interesting from the very beginning today, and the “chip leader bonus” of $5,000 for the end-of-day leader added some thrills near the end, too. Speaking of the latter, Jason Helder enjoyed a big last push — including winning a big hand right at the end while making quads — to finish with a whopping 400,400 to sit in first position.
There were a total of 196 entries on Day 1A, with 69 players making it through to Sunday’s Day 2. Helder’s late night heroics put him well clear of the day’s other big chip accumulators, among them John Racener (337,700), Mohsin Charania (233,200), Shannon Shorr (219,400), Jonathan Little (188,700), and Diane Mendez (188,700).
That quads hand mentioned above came at the expense of one of the day’s bounty players, Sean Winter, thus giving Helder another $2,500 for knocking out a bounty. (That’s Winter handing Helder his bounty medallion above.) Other players whose bounties were claimed today included Allyn Shulman, Barry Shulman, Faraz Jaka, Blake Bohn, James Calderaro, Matt Glantz, Matt Salsberg, Noah Schwartz, Sean Cunix, and Scotty Nguyen.
Here’s a look at the top 10 stacks for Day 1A (including five bounty players), plus the stacks of the other five bounty players who survived the day:
1. Jason Helder – 400,400
2. John Racener (bounty) – 337,700
3. Mohsin Charania (bounty) – 233,200
4. Shannon Shorr (bounty) – 219,400
5-tie. Jonathan Little (bounty) – 188,700
5-tie. Diane Mendez – 188,700
7. Jared Jaffee (bounty) – 181,200
8. Edward Mroczkowski – 165,000
9. Darryll Fish – 159,100
10. Russ Head – 156,000
Brian Hastings (bounty) – 132,600
Jason Mercier (bounty) – 78,500
Lee Markholt (bounty) – 56,700
Tyler Patterson (bounty) – 39,300
Mukul Pahuja (bounty) – 28,300
Tomorrow will see the second and last Day 1 flight play out, with all players eliminated today able to re-enter again for Day 1B if they wish. There will be a new group of bounty players in action, too, to add more excitement once more. Players ending with short stacks today can also come back tomorrow if they wish and try to accumulate bigger stacks to take a “best stack forward” to Sunday’s Day 2.
Don’t forget, if you’re at bestbet Jacksonville, you can win some sweet Monster gear in the #WPTSelfie contest.
Thanks for following our coverage today and be sure to return Saturday at 12 p.m. for another action-packed day of poker from the bestbet Jacksonville.