Saturday was an eventful day at The Bicycle Casino in the Los Angeles area as the ongoing WPT500 Los Angeles finally concluded its starting flights stage. Over the course of the past eight days, as many as 2,509 entrants paid the $570 buy-in fee to try their luck and challenge their skills in one of WPT’s most exclusive series.

Of the original field, only 124 will progress into Day 2 action which starts today at 1 pm local time. Action will kick off from Level 19, the earliest finish of all 16 starting flights, with blinds standing at 4,000/8,000.

Day 1O of the tournament was played yesterday at The Bike. It was the largest one of all starting flights, drawing 460 players. There were only 23 finalists left at the end of the day. They will advance into Day 2 led by Dustin Gottstein who bagged the largest stack last night. The player collected 1.334 million in chips.

It is important to note that this was not only Day 1O’s biggest chip stack, but also the biggest one bagged throughout all sixteen starting flights. In other words, Gottstein has finally replaced Day 1A chip leader Peter Hengsakul at the top of the overall chip counts chart.

Day 1P (Turbo) was the event’s final starting flight. It was, too, played yesterday at The Bike. The flight attracted 189 entries who were eventually whittled down to just nine players. Paul Lee bagged the largest stack of that closing starting flight. The player will enter Day 2 with 830,000 worth of chips.

As mentioned above, Gottstein will begin Day 2 as the overall chip leader with 1.334 million, followed by Day 1A’s Hengsakul with 1.151 million. It is interesting to note that Hengsakul is looking to improve his third-place finish in the previous edition of the WPT500 Los Angeles. The tournament was played at The Gardens Casino last May. Hengsakul made it to the podium, but could only claim the bronze and a third-place prize of $100,000.

Alexander Beleson, the Day 1G chip leader, will enter Day 2 action with the third largest chip stack of all 124 remaining hopefuls with 1.114 million. And Thomas Zanot is the last player to have passed the one million mark. Zanot was the Day 1I chip leader and bagged 1.1 million at the end of that starting flight.

The 2,509-strong field of the WPT500 Los Angeles created a prize pool of $1,254,500, easily crushing the $1-million guarantee. It is yet to be announced how much the winner will be awarded.

Day 2 of the tournament is set for a 1 pm start at The Bike, known to be one of California’s hottest poker destinations. The remaining hopefuls will be contending for a spot among the final nine. The nine finalists will then return to the host casino on Monday to play down to a champion.

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