The World Series of Poker Circuit continued action in Las Vegas on Saturday with Day 1b of the Caesars Palace Las Vegas Main Event. After Day 1a drew 311 entries, another 433 were added to the mix with the second starting flight to bring the overall number of entries up to 744, breaking well past last year’s number of 662. From Day 1b, 93 players advanced with Salvatore Dicarlo leading the charge with 421,700 in chips.
Dicarlo hails from Creve Coeur, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, but has been a Las Vegas local for some time now. He regularly frequents all of the major tournaments series in Sin City and has collected over $140,000 in live tournaments earnings. Dicarlo’s best result to date was a second-place finish in a $340 event at the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza IV in 2011 for $29,634.
Day 1b Top 10 Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Salvatore Dicarlo | 421,700 |
| 2 | Matthew Leecy | 225,300 |
| 3 | Bashar Ramahi | 197,200 |
| 4 | Stuart Marshak | 187,400 |
| 5 | Dana Forden | 187,300 |
| 6 | Anthony Mar | 179,600 |
| 7 | Adam Junglen | 158,600 |
| 8 | Francisco Azares | 157,900 |
| 9 | Steve Gross | 157,300 |
| 10 | Fabio Coppola | 155,800 |
The big pot that secured the chip lead for Dicarlo came in the final level of the day, Level 15 with the blinds at 1,000/2,000/300. According to the WSOP live reporting staff, Brandon Hall opened with a raise to 4,500, a middle-position player called, Kurt Jewell called, and then Dicarlo reraised to 18,000. Action made its way back over to Hall, and he four-bet to 42,000. That knocked the middle-position player and Jewell out of the pot, but Dicarlo wasn’t going anywhere. Instead, he announced that he was all in, and Hall made the call.
Hall was the player at risk for around 130,000. He held the 
, but Dicarlo held a crushing 
to have a hammerlock on the hand. After the dealer ran out the 
board, Dicarlo had won the pot, and Hall was sent to the rail. That pot pushed Dicarlo over the 400,000-chip mark.
Another player to finish with a healthy stack was Adam Junglen, who bagged 158,600 in chips at the end of the night. Junglen found a nice boost to his stack in the following hand towards the end of the day.
In Level 12 with the blinds at 600/1,200/200, Junglen was involved in a multi-way pot on the 
flop from the big blind. On the flop, play checked to the original raiser, and he fired 7,300. Only the small blind and Junglen made the call. The turn was the 
, and the small blind checked. Junglen fired 6,200, but then the original raiser moved all in for approximately 34,000. After the small blind folded, Junglen called with the 
for trip deuces. His at-risk opponent held the 
for two pair and needed a king on the river to stay alive. The 
fell on the final card, securing the victory for Junglen and eliminating his opponent.
Other notables who finished strong on Day 1b were Steve Gross (157,300), Scott Clements (141,000), Robert Cheung (113,800) and Eric Baldwin (109,800). Chris Johnson also bagged a good amount at 97,000 and previously won this event in 2011.
As always, not everyone was able to bag chips at the end of the night. Several of those eliminated during the day’s play were Vinny Pahuja, Joe Kuether, Leo Wolpert, Ty Reiman, Vanessa Rousso and Tristan Wade.
Pahuja informed the WSOP live reporting staff that he won a nice pot with 
against 
with all of the money going in preflop, but that didn’t save him from heading out the door not too long after. After things began to go south for Pahuja, Steve Zolotow benefited from receiving the last of his chips. During Level 15 with the blinds at 1,000/2,000/300, Pahuja’s couldn’t overcome Zolotow’s , and he was out the door.
Defending champion Kevin Calenzo was also eliminated, failing to improve with a flush draw against his opponent’s bottom set of deuces after all the money went in on the flop.
The combined field of 151 survivors from Day 1a and Day 1b will return to action on Sunday at 1 p.m. PT. The top 81 spots are set to be paid out from the $1.116 million prize pool, and the lion’s share of that is $223,197 up top for the winner. Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews for daily recaps of the action as the quest for another WSOP Circuit champion moves forward.
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