January 21, 2017 (Durant, Okla.) - Flight B of the Circuit Main Event at Choctaw Casino drew 894 players, bringing the total entries for the event to 1,451. That makes this the fifth-largest Main Event in WSOP Circuit history. The 189 players who made it through today will join the 100 Flight A survivors for a total of 289 returning players for Day 2 tomorrow.
The Day 1B chip leader is Sergio Ramirez, who bagged 349,000 chips. Ramirez goes into Day 2 second in chips overall, just behind the 356,000 of Rocky Le. Rounding out the top five stacks from Flight B are John Newcombe (305,000), two-time ring winner Bob Beck (300,000), Gints Galvins (299,500), and Jason Strasser (298,500).
Other notables to survive today's flight included Bracelet winners Mike Cordell (239,500), Kevin Eyster (60,000), and Grant Hinkle (53,000), 2011 Choctaw Main Event Champion Huy Nguyen (107,000), and ring winners Caufman Talley (44,000), Ray Henson (133,500), Woody Moore (132,500), Allen Kessler (60,500), Greg Himmelbrand (109,000), Benjamin Reason (51,000), Sean Berrios (104,000) and Corey Bierria (37,500).
Players who busted out today and will not advance include six-time bracelet winner TJ Cloutier, bracelet winners Adrian Buckley, Ben Keeline, Jonathan Hilton, ring winners Maurice Hawkins, Valentin Vornicu, John Holley, and the current Casino Champion points leader, Nathanael Kogel.
The 289 players returning for Day 2 tomorrow are battling for a first place prize of $375,427. A total of 153 players will cash in this event, with a minimum payout of $2,917. A complete payout structure is available here.
Play resumes at 12 p.m. tomorrow for ten 60-minute levels of play.
The top ten stacks to start Day 2 are as follows:
1 - Rocky Le (356,000)
2 - Sergio Ramirez (349,000)
3 - John Newcombe (305,000)
4 - Bob Beck (300,000)
5 - Gints Galvins (299,500)
6 - Jason Strasser (298,500)
7 - Abraham Araya (270,500)
8 - Jonathan Gaviao (264,000)
9 - Shino Fujiwara (256,000)
10 - Jonathan Steitz (241,000)
Complete chip counts and table draw for the remaining players can be found here.