Day 1A Ends with Uri Kadosh Leading 227 Survivors

Day 1A of the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown comes to an end with 227 players remaining from a field of 646. Uri Kadosh (pictured) finished the day as the chipleader with 245,000 (205 big blinds).

Here are the top five chip counts:

1.  Uri Kadosh  –  245,500  (205 bb)
2.  Robert Transue  –  239,500  (200 bb)
3.  Nguyet Kim Dao  –  237,300  (198 bb)
4.  Josh Rittenberg  –  235,800  (197 bb)
5.  Paul Snead  –  220,000  (183 bb)

Transue held the chip lead right off the bat and maintained it for a solid portion of the day, but a late run by Kadosh in the final two levels put him atop the counts to close the day.

Season XVI Hublot Player of the Year leader Art Papazyan bagged a top 20 stack of 156,200, defending Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown champion Tony Sinishtaj made it through with 65,100, reigning Hublot WPT Player of the Year Benjamin Zamani bagged a little less with 56,000, and LearnWPT Qualifier David Burns survived with a short stack of 24,000.

Day 1B begins tomorrow at 11:00 am EDT, with registration open until about 9:15 pm with unlimited re-entries. There is already more than $2 million in the prizepool, so the field is on pace to crush the guaranteed prizepool of $3 million.

Photography by Joe Giron / PokerPhotoArchive.com