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| Final 9 and friends |
Day 1 ends with two players down and out. First to go was Mikey, who was never below his starting chips and was on a constant flow of accumulation until he ran into Chester's one card straight flush. That's right, straight flush. Naturally Mike had the Ace-high flush.
I know that feeling, Chess straight flushed me off the Final Table a couple of seasons ago, but a better player probably could have gotten away from my Ace-high flush the way it played out. I don't think anyone would have laid down Mike's hand. Except maybe Jeena, you should have let her play instead.
Second out was Julie, who found herself with pkt K's and in the hand with Chess and a Jack high flop. Turn comes another J and Chess finds a way to get Julie's chips all in. Chess shows the Jack for the win.
The final hand of the night was with the starting chip leaders, JC and Chess, heads up and betting big. I don't know how the hand played out, I don't even know what the board was, my chips were bagged and tagged and I was grazing in the buffet. I came back after a long delay to find the two still positioning when I hear "ok I call" from JC. That call was for another 920K into an already big pot and Chess shows 2-4 off for the win. Huge, huge hand and Chess deals a serious blow to the season's Points Champion, knocking him down to just under 400K. Like Lieutenant Dan, chopped at the knees but still plenty dangerous.
Chess was up and down and importing/exporting a lot of chips all night, but after that final hand is the clear chip leader at over 3M, moving up over 1.2M for the day.
The other big mover was Kelly, who gained over 800K and finds herself second in chips. Here's the rest:
| Place | Player | Starting | Day 1 End | Move |
| 1 | Chess | 2,059,780 | 3,314,300 | 1,254,520 |
| 2 | Kelly | 1,002,876 | 1,809,800 | 806,924 |
| 3 | Eric | 1,694,128 | 1,719,300 | 25,172 |
| 4 | Scott | 956,185 | 1,246,300 | 290,115 |
| 5 | Padma | 346,333 | 798,200 | 451,867 |
| 6 | Kurticus | 956,185 | 713,200 | -242,985 |
| 7 | JC | 1,916,847 | 398,900 | -1,517,947 |
| 8 | Julie | 726,281 | 0 | -726,281 |
| 9 | Mike | 341,385 | 0 | -341,385 |
| 10,000,000 | 10,000,000 | 0 |
Day 2 starts with Bloody Mary's on Saturday at 10:00 am.
