The $3,500 BetMGM Poker Championship used two Day 1 flights – and every available table at ARIA Resort & Casino – to draw 1,853 total entrants to the highlight event. The massive field nearly doubled the $3 million guarantee with an unofficial $5.9 million prizepool that awards the winner a cool $1,000,889.
Flight 1A saw 740 entrants take to the felt and 12 levels of action cut the field down to 224 advancing players. Tuesday’s sister flight exceeded all expectations with 1,113 entrants and 371 players survived the day, for 595 total returning for Day 2.
Massive Field Leads to Massive Payouts
The returning field is so large that 12 tables begin play in the PokerGO Studio. Each one of them will be playing for the top 231 spots that make the money, and it’s staggering. After the newly minted millionaire, each player at the final table earns six figures and the final three tables make few dollars short of $30,000.
Mitchell Halverson topped the field on Monday with the only seven-figure stack, with Davidi Kitai, Upeshka De Silva and Bin Weng finishing in the top ten chip counts. Eric Baldwin, Shannon Shorr, BetMGM Ambassador Darren Elias and Jonathan Tamayo return to Day 2 with above-average stacks.
World Class Players, World Class Action
Jacky Wang topped the field for Day 1B with 533,000 in the bag. Flight 1B’s top ten was only separated by 71,000, while 1A’s had a spread of over 600,000. Romit Patel, Paul Hong and Eric Chang landed in the top ten.
David Peters, Adrian Mateos, Martin Zamini, Landon Tice, Eric Afriat, Toby Lewis and Matt Glantz were among the field that put chips in bags to return for Day 2.
BetMGM Poker Pros & VIPs
BetMGM’s Sponsored pro Ashley Frank was short-stacked in Flight 1A with only minutes remaining. She got involved in a five-way pot with four players calling her post-flop shove. A second player took down the side pots with nothing but a naked flush draw, but Frank quintupled up to 150,000 with the main pot holding two pair.
BetMGM Poker qualified 113 players from around the country into the event and most played Day 1A. Gary Sheffield, Andruw Jones and AJ Pierzynski played in the MLB Big League live stream for charity and played Flight 1B. Dellin Betances won the event and had the best showing of the group, played deep but was eliminated in the final level of the night.
BetMGM Poker Ambassador and Content Partner Abby Merk steadily built a stack throughout Flight 1A but took a bad beat in the last level of play when her opponent made a runner-runner straight and was eliminated.
Cards hit the air promptly at noon with ten, 60-minute levels scheduled for Day 2.
Top Ten Overall Day 1AB Chip Counts
- Mitchell Halverson – 1,031,500
- Petre Ionescu – 762,000
- Davidi Kitai – 627,500
- Michael Berk – 548,500
- Jacky Wang – 533,000
- Carlos Saez – 530,500
- Matas Cikinas – 525,300
- Hassan El Hakim – 522,000
- Romit Patel – 507,000
- Paul Hong – 496,000
To get in on the action or kick off your online poker journey, register with BetMGM Poker.
