The original field of 48 has already reduced to 31 with some of the biggest names falling.
The first day of the SHRB saw Daniel Negreanu overriding the field to finish on the top of the leaderboard by a huge lead. Daniel accumulated 1,618,000 chips, while current second Jason Koon only has 986,000 and Steffen Sontheimer in the third place oversees 960,500. The Las Vegas-based pro, who has been working a lot to upgrade his game to the modern-day GTO-approach was certainly pretty ambitious before the tournament, and so far his confidence seems to be paying off.
"I’m here to win this tournament."
The table drawing added some extra spice to the tournament, as notorious antidopes, Daniel and Doug Polk happened to sit right next to each other. "I really came in with a specific focus," Daniel said. "Obviously, you know your table draw beforehand. I know that Doug on my left is trying to get under my skin and he’s gonna try to throw me off my game. I’m a veteran at this, I’m not gonna be distracted."
Clash of Youtube-titans
Negreanu got the best of Polk this time, who’s already busted, just like the first-ever champion of the event, Brian Rast. Brian was the first player to bust thanks to a huge bluff, he ran on Kathy Lehne – the only female player in the field -, who happened to have the nut straight.
Brian was followed by One Drop champ, Antonio Esfandiari but Ben "Ben86" Tollerene, Phil Hellmuth, David Peters, Timofey "Trueteller" Kuznetsov and Adrian Mateos have also joined the rail, as all of them busted during the first day.
Icons of the old school and the new school, Fedor Holz and Phil Ivey are both still in, with 522,500 and 254,000 respectively.
As usual, PokerGO exclusively provides the high-quality live stream for the event.