Card Player Poker Tour Venetian: Anselmo Villareal Bags Up The Top Stack At The End Of Day 1B

A total of 152 entries jumped into the mix on day 1B of the $400,000 guaranteed Card Player Poker Tour main event at The Venetian® Resort Las Vegas, putting the total field size at 241 with the prize pool up to $342,220. The $1,600 buy-in tournament sports three starting flights, with 12.5% of the field making the money. In the end tonight, 19 players advanced to join the 12 players that had already made day 2 from the day 1A contenders, and all of them are guaranteed at least a min-cash on Sunday.

Each player began with 40,000 in chips to play with as 40-minute blind levels played throughout the flight that clocked in at 12 hours. Late registration and re-entry were available through the start of level 13. The final hand saw both the money bubble and end-of-day bubble burst simultaneously when Aaron Massey took out Hal Rotholz to end play for the night.

The player at the top of the counts to end play was previous CPPT Venetian runner-up Anselmo Villareal, who held 669,000 at the end of play. That stack makes him the overall chip leader heading into Day 2 at this point in the tournament. His previous second-place finish here in the Venetian Poker Room came back in 2021 when he cashed for a nice payday worth $253,441.

Other big stacks near the top at the end of play include two-time World Series of Poker gold bracelet winner Scott Ball with 632,000, and Yaron Malki rounds out the top three with a stack of 506,000. There are just four players in the tournament that advanced above the half-million mark in chips now along with Day 1A leader Evan Sandberg (571,000).

Jeremy Becker, who was the talk of poker social media today due to a cross-booking bet made by Daniel Negreanu pitting Becker against Landon Tice, bagged up the fourth-largest stack on day 1B with 493,000. Becker is currently ranked inside the top 25 in the Card Player Player of the Year race thanks to a strong start to 2024, with one POY-qualified title and five such final-table finishes.

Bet bookedJbex2417</a> vs <a href="https://twitter.com/LandonTice?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">LandonTice

Mutually played events 25 minimum this summer

100% crossbook with a $250k cap on events $10k and under.

Good luck boys!

Which side do you like?

— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) February 17, 2024

Notables who took a seat on day 1B, but were unable to bag included all-time Venetian money leader Eric Baldwin, Shannon Shorr, Dylan Linde, Matt Affleck, and WPT champion Qing Liu.

There was 13:45 left remaining in level 17 (4,000-8,000 with a big blind ante of 8,000) when play concluded.

Tournament play continues with Day 1C beginning Saturday, Feb. 17 at 11:10 AM local time. Day 2 will begin Sunday at 11:00 AM.

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