After a fun-filled ten-hour Day 1E, the $300 + $30 Colossus noon flight has finally wrapped. With a total of 336 entries (including 64 re-entries), 51 players ended up making it through to the next step. That next step is Day 2, which kicks off this Monday, August 26th at 12:00pm.

At the top of the group today was Christopher Taylor, who collected an impressive 374,000 chips. Chris finds himself in a comfortable position heading into Day 2, landing in 5th place on the overall leaderboard, a group that includes players from a total of nine previous flights (four online and five live at Playground). All the 260 qualifiers, along with their chip counts, are listed here in the combined results page.

The end of this flight didn’t come easy – in fact it turned into quite a roller coaster of emotions, as hand-for-hand play extended to almost an hour. As players waited for the last elimination, they jumped up from their seats to crowd around a table each time there was an all-in.

On more than three occasions, the bubble player came up against the abyss, only to be rescued by a last-minute twist of fate. At one point a Jack-8 survived against two other all-ins, making a runner, runner gut-shot straight (one opponent had pocket Aces, the other had an Ace-King). Similarly improbable hands seemed to happen over and over, extending play across the seven remaining tables much further than anticipated. As the blinds ate into chip stacks that appeared invulnerable at the start of the hand-for-hand play, many players started to sweat.

In the end, the final player was ultimately eliminated in a more or less normal hand, occurring so quietly that many in the larger group didn’t realize they were in the money until a few minutes later. Once they heard, the remaining 51 players breathing a collective sigh of relief, proceeding to bag their chips and congratulate each other on a successful afternoon of poker.

The next (and final) chance to get in on the Colossus action is tomorrow, Sunday August 25th. The last three flights (Day 1G, Day 1H and the Turbo Day 1I) will begin at noon, 4:30pm and 9:00pm, respectively. So if you want a piece of the guaranteed $1,000,000 prize pool, come on down to Playground and join the action, before it’s too late!

Below are some pictures of the larger stacks from the end of today’s flight. Christopher Taylor is not pictured.