Day 1A continues to be extremely slow in terms of stacks being built. Mike Mercaldo dipped back below 300k and now there is not a single player over that threshold. Just one more level to play on the five remaining tables and it looks like somewhere between 30-40 players will be sent into Day 2.
Michael Gagliano, Day 1A Level 15
Gags is here and is working with a stack near 200k heading into the final level. We just our first event that played all the way out to a single winner. It took a year and four months to achieve that and it was Gagliano that was the last outright winner at Big Stax XVIII when he defeated Tom Thomas heads up and took him $104,999, his sixth largest career score out of his ~$1.9M in career earnings.
Mercaldo appears to have over 300k late in Level 12 and the exact count will be availabe during the next break in about ten minutes. Mercaldo has been doing very well on Day 1 sessions this series but has yet to cash an event. However, the 1500 could be his time to shine and improve on his previous performance in this event. Last year, Mercaldo grabbed his second Big Stax Final Table in 2017 with a 10th place finish in the 1100 for $6,773.
Bagdasarov is up to ~250k and in fine shape midway through Level 11. Fellow big stack, Josias Dos Santos, is also in his rotation with ~220k.
Bagdasarov has just over $20k in live earnings but is going for back to back cashes in this event after finishing 44th at Big Stax XXIII for $2,955. The Philly player notches his career best score last year in the WPT Legends of Poker in LA finishing 25th for $15,360 in the $4k buy-in.
Chris Johnson, Day 1A Level 11
Johnson is right on his heels with ~230k. Johnson appears to be making his Parx debut. He is a player out of Reno, Nevada with ~117k in live earnings. He had an excellent year at the WSOP in 2017 putting him his three best career scores including a 7th in a $1k event for $39,937.
Johnson has a pretty tough table to contend with for the final levels of Day 1A. Howard Burton and Neal Gay are both in his rotation and have been playing very well at Big Stax XXIV. Also, former Big Stax Champion Travis Hartshorn is there as well. However, Johnson has all the chips for the time being but he just said “They can go away very quickly.”
Borrero takes the chip-lead into the post-dinner session with ~200k. His table looks like a pretty decent spot with only one recognizable player, Ryan McKnight on his immediate left with ~130k.
Borrero has ~$345k in live earnings and his last big score was in July 2017. He finished 7th in the very popular Kickoff Event at Borgata for $36,587, which was his largest career score. He also has one Final Table here at the Big Stax series finishing 6th in the 500 Main Event in February 2014 for $13,906.
Cards are back in the air for six more levels of Day 1A. Things continue to build slowly with the chip-leader at just four starting stacks as opposed to the 300/500 where the leader at this point could have as much as 7-8 starting stacks. Here are the Top 3 stacks:
The field is currently working on nine tables as they head to dinner break. With the fairly slow action early, blog updates were put on hold during the early levels. When play resumes, we will get a better look at the leader-board and get into some of the players and action in this extremely tough field.
On Wednesday night, the NL/PLO Mix Side event took place in the main room. 130 players came out to participate creating a prize-pool of $37.830. The event ended in a four-way chop, here are the final results:
1
GARY
KOWAKOWSKI
$ 8,282
2
JOSEPH
PALMA
$ 6,406
3
MAXIM
URVANTS
$ 6,321
4
JOHN
MALCZAN
$ 5,540
5
MICHAEL
CRINGOLI
$ 2,542
6
JOSEPH
REICHENBACHER
$ 1,922
7
RYAN
GILBERT
$ 1,491
8
FELIX
LEVITSKY
$ 1,124
9
PHILIP
D AGOSTINO
$ 965
10
NATE
LINDQUIST
$ 855
11
VIVEK
BEHERA
$ 794
12
PETERPAUL
SHAKER
$ 794
13
MARCO
AGNOLUCCI
$ 794
Parx Legend, Joe Palma
There are people in the Philadelphia poker community who believe that every time Palma makes Day 2 and is working with a ten big blind stack, that he deserves to be mentioned on the blog. That sort of mentality shows just how popular of a player he is around Parx. However, taking 2nd in a side-event to bring him back into a virtual tie with Vinny Pahuja for the all-time Parx money leader is worthy of a blog mention. As well as the fact that Palma has worked up what looks to be ~170k on Day 1A with the dinner break right around the corner. Of course, a win in this event would put Palma way back in front and considering his success here at this venue it is certainly possible that we will see him on Day 3 of this event going for another title.
Same ridiculously good Big Stax structure with the largest starting stack of the three Main Events, 50k. The 1500 Main Event will see anywhere from 300-400 entries with tomorrow’s final starting flight bringing in the most runners. Day 1s will get started at 11 AM instead of 10 AM for the previous two events with dinner break and end of session coming an hour later than usual. Head to parxcasino.com/bigstax for a look at the schedule and structure.
The players have just began Level 7 and as is usual for this event stacks build very slowly throughout the day. Here are the Top 3:
Dan Daconti, Big Stax XXIV 500 Main Event Champion
Ryan Eriquezzo had knocked Dan Daconti down to just 13.775M before two flips in a matter of a few hands ended the tournament in the final minute of Level 36.
First, Daconti moved all-in from the button for 13.775M with 5♠5♣ and was called by K♦J♦. The board ran out 7x3xAx3x6x and Daconti re-took the lead with ~27M to Eriquezzo’s ~17M.
A few hands later, Daconti moved all-in from the button once again, covering Eriquezzo’s stack of 16.775M. Eriquezzo immediately called and they would be off to the races once again.
Daconti A♠K♣ vs Eriquezzo J♠J♥
Board: A♦3♣2♥10♦4♣
Daconti spikes his Ace right away and holds to take down the 500 Main Event trophy, the first outright winner in some time at the Big Stax series.
Four handed play began right at midnight and it took nearly ten hours of play to determine a winner in this excellent structure. The heads-up battle was very back and forth with three massive flips ultimately determining the outcome of the event.
Dan Daconti grabs his largest career score and his first major title. Eriquezzo had taken a long hiatus from live tournament poker and hits the largest score he has made since 2012.
Congratulations to all of the Day 3 finishers and thanks to everyone who participated in the 500 Main Event. The 1500 Main Event kicks off on Friday with the first of two opening flights.
