Players' Favorite Lula Taylor Nabs the Chip Lead in Brand New Event #69: $1,000 Mini Main Event
Lula Taylor has clinched the chip lead with 2,695,000 chips at the end of Day 1 of Event #69: $1,000 Mini Main Event. In an incredible response to the inaugural event, 5,521 unique entries were recorded as the tournament took over the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino, with players lining up to take a seat for much of the day.
Taylor pipped Liran Betito (2,625,000) to the overnight lead by a whisker, with Betito having to settle for second place in the counts. Other big stacks include Heidi Orloff (1,935,000), Alexis Urli (1,925,000) and Lazaro Hernandez (1,890,000) who will all return tomorrow to challenge for pole position. It was ultimately Taylor’s day though, a player who was as popular as she was formidable, so much so that her tablemates gave her a round of applause as she bagged up.
Nick Pupillo (1,470,000), Norson Saho (1,275,000), Martin Finger (1,070,000), Barry Greenstein (765,000), Chris Ferguson (725,000), Jeff Madsen (490,000) and David Peters (325,000), are some of the big names still in with a shot of taking home a slice of the $4,968,000 prize pool and will all have their sights set on the $628,654 first prize. Saho is one to watch after proving his ability in huge fields, finishing 6th in the Colossus event just a few days ago.
The penultimate level of the day saw 829 players make the money, with a four-way chop on the bubble securing all those remaining at least $1,499 for their efforts. With the fast structure, it was no surprise to see eliminations coming in thick and fast and the field was whittled down to 546 after the bubble in less than an hour. Some notables who couldn’t go the distance were Daniel Negreanu, Bertrand Grospellier, Tom McEvoy, Max Pescatori, Dzmitry Urbanovich, Michael Soyza, Asi Moshe, Liv Boeree, Barny Boatman, Kenny Hallaert, Peter Costa, Joey Weissman, Konstantin Puchkov and Matt Affleck.
For all those who survived though, it will all be about tomorrow as this two-day event is scheduled to conclude. With $1,843 locked up already, the hopefuls will return tomorrow 2nd July at 12 noon local time in Pavillion White and Black.
Join PokerNews then, with full coverage of all the excitement from the moment the cards are in the air until the winner has been crowned.
favored the preflop favorite and Ferguson collected the pot.
and Robert Perkins looked him up with the 
.
and Young headed to the rail.
and held up on the 
turn and 
brought fireworks as Chisu and another player from Romania in the under-the-gun position ended up all in and Cheng Xiong looked them up with the superior stack.
turn was a blank, but Xiong got there on the 
river to score a double knockout.
and Boatman continued small for 5,000. His opponent swiftly moved all in for almost 50,000 and it was an instant call from Boatman.
turn and 
river were safe cards and the two-time bracelet winner collected a very nice pot.
. His opponent had checked and Dattani bet for 15,300 with 30,100 behind.
went check-check and on the 
flop, Bensimhon continued for 3,400 and the initial raiser raised to 10,300, which was called only by Bensimhon.
