Friday, February 27, 2015 11:56 PM Local Time
Josh Turner Leads as 36 Advance from Lumiere Main Event Flight A
The first of two flights in the $1,675 World Series of Poker Circuit Main Event at Lumiere Place began Friday at noon with 194 hopefuls. The impressive starting field, which marked a slight increase over last year’s 172-player opener, played to just 36 remaining following 15 levels.
Setting the pace is Josh Turner (pictured) who transformed his 20,000-chip starting into 400,500. Turner, who’s spent much of the 2014/2015 Circuit season at or near the top of the National Championship points leaderboard, not only is the only player over 400,000 chips, he’s the only player over 300,000. The next closest stack belongs to Byron Hubert who holds 261,000. From there, Russ Head sits third with 219,500 and Nate Ralston fourth with 196,000.
Others trailing Turner include Yuval Bronshtein (128,500), Tom Franklin (109,000), William Byrnes (95,500), Ari Engel (93,000) and Chico Pho (55,000).
Full Flight A chip counts are available under the “Reports” tab above.
As far as those who didn’t advance, notables Jeff Fielder and Mark Fisher came up dry on two bullets, and thus, ended their shot at Circuit gold in the $1,675 finale. Meanwhile, bracelet winners Chris Tryba and Kyle Cartwright, 2008 WSOP Main Event third-place finisher Dennis Phillips, defending Lumiere Casino Champion Peter Nigh, Chris Conrad and Zal Irani used just one and are permitted to re-enter the action tomorrow.
The second and final starting flight begins Saturday at noon. Those fortunate enough to bag chips reconvene with today’s Flight A players for Day 2 Sunday at 2 p.m.