On Friday, Season XI of the World Poker Tour continued with Day 1a of the Parx Open Poker Classic from the Parx Casino in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. Thus far, 324 players are registered for the event, including 50 preregistered for Day 1b. Only 93 players survived Day 1a and the man leading the pack is 2009 WPT World Poker Finals champ Cornel Cimpan with a stack of 242,800.
Not everyone was as fortunate as Cimpan on Day 1a. Dan O’Brien, Allen Kessler, Joseph Cheong, Will “The Thrill” Failla, Tony Dunst, Leo Wolpert, and Parx Casino Poker Ambassador Matt Glantz are just a few of the players who hit the rail throughout 10 levels of play. Lucky for them, the Parx Open Poker Classic is a reentry tournament, so most will likely return on Day 1b.
In what ended up being Glantz’s last hand, he got all-in on a flop of 
holding 
and was up against the 
of an unknown opponent. Neither the 
turn nor 
river helped Glantz and he was dispatched at the beginning of Level 6.
Likewise, it was not a good day for Matt Brady, who was playing in his home casino. Brady made it all the way to the last level of the night before moving all-in preflop with 
only to be called by an opponent holding 
. The 
flop kept Brady in the lead, but the spiked on the turn to put him in dire straits. The 
river left Brady crippled, and he was eliminated a few hands later.
Dwyte Pilgrim (120,000), Jason Somerville (95,000), Christian Harder (89,000), Faraz Jaka (56,800), Nick Binger (41,300), Dan Shak (41,000), David “ODB” Baker (33,600) and Xuan Liu (31,300), are among the players headed into Day 2.
Here’s a look at the top 10 chip counts at the end of Day 1a:
2012 WPT Parx Open Poker Classic Day 1a Top 10 Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cornel Cimpan | 242,800 |
| 2 | Gregory Shuarts | 220,000 |
| 3 | William Brandise | 208,300 |
| 4 | Ravi Raghavan | 166,500 |
| 5 | Brian Taylor | 135,600 |
| 6 | Paul Volpe | 132,800 |
| 7 | Bryan Piccioli | 125,000 |
| 8 | Dwyte Pilgrim | 120,000 |
| 9 | Shaun Deeb | 118,900 |
| 10 | Victor Ramdin | 115,300 |
A whole new field of players will take to the felt at 1200 EDT (1700 BST) on Saturday and will play 10 levels. PokerNews will have your recap of the action once players have bagged and tagged, so be sure to check back then.
*Hands and data courtesy of the WPT Live Reporting Blog.
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