Day 1b of WinStar World Casino’s 2012 River Poker Series Main Event is officially in the books and at the end of the day, Clint Baker emerged as the chip leader with a stack of 556,500.
The owner of the second biggest stack in the room is Jeff Gibralter who has 397,000. Rounding out the top five stacks are Danny Chamberlain (360,000), Mark Eddleman (308,000), and Andy Hwang (287,000).
Other notable players who will be returning to the tables on Sunday are Justin Gardenhire (263,000), Joe Kuether (168,500), Maria Ho (88,000), and Heath Herring (57,000).
A grand total of 418 players turned up for Day 1b and several of those players were taking their second shot at this re-entry event. With a $2,500,000 guaranteed prize pool for the Main Event, it’s no wonder that dozens of notable players put up the $2,100 buy in for a second time.
Players such as Vanessa Selbst, Greg Raymer, David Diaz, John Dolan, Harrison Gimbel, Dwyte Pilgrim, David "ODB" Baker, AJ Jejelowo, and Robert Salaburu all took a second shot only to find themselves back on the rail for a second time.
Day 1b also found a slew of familiar faces taking a crack at this event for the first time. Brett Richey, John "Tex" Barch, Nick Jivkov, and Layne Flack all ponied up the buy-in only to meet their end by the end of the day’s play.
The 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event champion Chris Moneymaker also showed up to battle on the felt for Day 1b. Moneymaker had a roller coaster of a day where he remained stagnant early on and then finally found a surge after the second break. Moneymaker’s day finally came to a close when he three-bet his stack all in before the flop against a raise and a caller. The original raiser folded but the second player in the hand, Chris Conrad, called Moneymaker’s all in bet. Conrad held 
and was crushing Moneymaker’s 
. The board ran out 
and Moneymaker looked down to see nothing but felt. We suspect that he will be one of the many players to take one last stab at this event on Day 1c.
Drake Roetker was the man who broke the bubble when he moved his short stack all in before the flop and was called by Mark Eddleman. Roetker was looking forward to a double up as his 
was crushing Eddleman’s 
. Unfortunately for Roetker, the 
fell on the turn and he was forced to settle for the title of bubble boy.
A grand total of 42 players from Day 1b will move on to Day 2 on Sunday. In the meantime, casino staff is expecting the largest turnout of all three starting days tomorrow for Day 1c. Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews see who is able to survive on to Day 2 and beyond!
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