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As the excitement was building in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic Saturday evening with nine players left out of 203 bidding for a $65,000 grand prize at the Punta Cana Poker Classic, over on the West Coast we had 147 players left out of 330 in the 2010 North American Poker Tour.
The Bicycle Casino was playing host to the NAPT $5,000 buy-in main event.
"We're really excited to have NAPT in the house," said Kelley O'Hara, Director of Marketing for the Bicycle. "They've taken it a step beyond. This is a cut-above event. It's great for the venue, it's great for the player... it's just a win-win."
Countries represented in the NAPT were Israel, Brazil, Mexico, Lithuania, Denmark, Netherlands, Canada, Germany, Spain, Argentina, Slovakia, the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Costa Rica and of course, the United States.
Participating from Team PokerStars were pros Jason Mercier, George Lind, Chris Moneymaker and Chad Brown.
By Saturday afternoon – Day 1B, John Cernuto led the pack with 55,000 chips. Daniel Negreau was the 3rd biggest chip leader.
PokerStars pros eliminated after Day 1 were Richard Toth, Pat Pezzin, Randy Lew, Greg Raymer, Liv Boeree, Vanessa Selbst and Barry Greenstein.
American PokerStars Player Nick Grippo finished the day atop the leaderboard with 235,100 in chips followed closely behind by Tom Middleton from the United Kingdom with 229,100 in chips.
Other notable Day 1a survivors include Scott Fischman (224,600), Thayer Rasmussen (164,700), John Phan (101,400), Andreas Hoivold (95,500), William Reynolds (93,100), Isaac Haxton (75,200) and Shannon Shorr (71,500).
By the end of Day 1A, the chip counts were as follows:
Nicholas Grippo, PokerStars Player - 235,100
Thomas Middleton - 229,100
Scott Fischman - 224,600
Clint Coffee - 202,900
Romulus Segal - 190,700
Cary Katz - 184,000
Ryan Welch - 183,100
Jacob Toole - 181,200
Richard Munro - 179,100
Jason Mercier, Team PokerStars USA - 173,200
- Ace King, Gambling911.com
