The first flight of the WPTDeepstacks kicked off today at 5:00pm and when the late registration period came to an end, there were a total of 149 entries (including 25 re-entries) playing for the $500,000 guaranteed prize pool. The field attracted many local and international pros and saw players who had busted out of Day 2 in the Main Event join the action as the evening progressed.

Rami Latif was in control through the first two breaks of the evening but ultimately fell short of finding a bag. It was Lam Nguyen who then took matters into his hands and led the field through the next two breaks of the evening. Late in the game, with only one level left to play, a massive hand took place when Patrick Eskandar picked up pocket aces and ended up all in against Michael Foley holding pocket kings. That hand ended up propelling Eskandar to the top of the field and in the end, he bagged the largest stack, a healthy 442,200 chips. Lam Nguyen ended up finishing in second place with 348,000.

When the players return on Sunday at 2:00pm for Day 2 the blinds will be at 1,500/3,000.
(NB: the schedule has been changed from the posted time of 1:00pm due to the late finish time of the 5:00pm starting flight in order to help accommodate the players who play Day 1C tomorrow)

Day 1B takes place tomorrow (Saturday) at 12 noon, and Day 1C, the final starting flight, is at 5:00pm. Day 2 is on Sunday at 2:00pm where they will play down to a final table, and Day 3 takes place on Monday at 1:00pm.

The top five stacks that were bagged were:

1. Patrick Eskandar, 442,200 (147 BB’s)
2. Lam Nguyen, 348,000 (116 BB’s)
3. Jiachen Gong, 230,700 (77 BB’s)
4. Senthuran Vijayaratnam, 217,900 (73 BB’s)
5. Medhat Ramzy, 209,000 (70 BB’s)

Here are some photos of the players who bagged the larger stacks tonight: