Day 1a of the $5,000 buy-in World Poker Tour (WPT) bestbet Scramble Championship had 156 entrants, and a familiar face bagged the biggest stack.
Josh Reichard, who won the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown in May for $839,300, is up to his old tricks. The Wisconsinite ended the opening session with 487,000 chips, a significant lead over all of the 56 players who survived the day.
One player who didn't find a bag at the end of the night at bestbet Jacksonville is Jeremy Becker. The Las Vegas daily tournament legend quickly doubled his stack after winning a race, and then nearly doubled it again before the dinner break. But he ended up going from massive stack to out of the tournament after losing a race to Maurice Hawkins with just a couple levels remaining in the session.
Reichard, on the other hand, that's a different story. The Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) and WPT champion who has collected 15 World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) rings will enter Day 2 on Sunday with 195 big blinds. Bagging the chip lead after Day 1 doesn't guarantee anything for any player — not even a cash. But Reichard has experience and proven results closing out a tournament and playing effectively with a big stack.
| Place | Player | Chip Stack |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Josh Reichard | 487,000 |
| 2 | Tony Dunst | 280,000 |
| 3 | Aaron Kupin | 252,500 |
| 4 | Dustin Holladay | 243,500 |
| 5 | Josh Hopkins | 239,500 |
The chip leader will have some tough competition on Day 2. World Poker Tour commentator and champion Tony Dunst finished Day 1a second in chips at 280,000, while 2015 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champion Joe McKeehen also secured a large stack (232,500). Christian Harder, Francis Anderson, and Brian Altman were among the big name players who bagged chips.
Dunst quickly began building his stack on Friday. He rivered a straight before the second break of the day to crack Becker's set to double up to over 100,000, more than doubling his 50,000-chip starting stack.
The defending champion, Frederic Normand, busted an early bullet before rebuying. Full chip stacks weren't available at the time of publishing. Day 1b, the final starting flight, will kick off at noon ET on Saturday. All remaining players from both Day 1 sessions will return to action at bestbet Jacksonville on Sunday at noon.
*Images courtesy of Katerina Lukina/World Poker Tour.
