Rick Salomon Leads 27 Day 1 Super High Roller Bowl Survivors

Rick Salomon was a last-minute addition to the Super High Roller Bowl V field. The prominent Hollywood figure turned high-stakes poker player was the 36th and final player to enter, as well as the only player to use his two add-on chips at the start of the day to start with 300,000. His decisions worked out perfectly for him as he finished Day 1 of the Super High Roller Bowl with the chip lead.

A full overview of Day 1 chip counts can be found here.

Salomon finished the day with 806,000 in chips and leads the 27 players that made it through the eight, 60-minute levels. The day was scheduled for nine levels of play, but after cards got in the air an hour late, the staff decided to cut the day short by one level. The structure of the tournament will not change, however, as the players will keep all of their time extensions and add-on chips until the end of level 9.

Ali Imsirovic (661,000), Daniel Negreanu (623,000) and Stephen Chidwick (553,000) round out the day’s top chip counts. Imsirovic used a late surge and a courageous bluff with queen-high against Chidwick to move up the counts. Both Imsirovic and Negreanu both have two more add-on chips remaining, while Chidwick and Salomon have used both of their extra add-on chips already and will have no do-overs for the one level that players are still eligible to use them tomorrow.

Negreanu finished third in chips, but nobody will be talking about how he got them. The day’s highlight was centered around Negreanu’s amazing fold against Mikita Badziakouski on the featured table, which was streamed on PokerGO. Negreanu turned the nut straight, which gave Badziakouski top set. Badziakouski filled up on the river and Negreanu check-folded to a single bet. Negreanu will look to use the momentum from his strong Day 1 finish to use Day 2 to propel him towards another deep run in the event after a runner-up finish in this same event last May.

Heading into the last level of the night, Chidwick was one of the shorter stacks remaining in the field, but after cracking aces twice in the final level, he was contending with Salomon for the chip lead. He was all in for his last 60,000 with no add-on chips remaining with against Dan Cates’ pocket aces. Chidwick flopped a queen and rivered a jack to stay double up and stay alive.

The British pro continued to chip up and nearly doubled his stack again when he was all in against Alex Foxen. He was up against pocket aces again, but this time he was holding pocket jacks. Chidwick spiked a jack and was immediately near the top of the counts.

The 36-player field was trimmed down to just 27 over the course of the day, which meant nine players were not going to be able to take a piece of the $10.8 million prize pool home.

Steffen Sontheimer, one of the world’s best no-limit hold’em players got off to a very slow start and was one of the shortest stacks early on. After using both of his add-on chips, he was all in with king-queen against Justin Bonomo’s ace-deuce. Bonomo flopped an ace and gave Sontheimer an early exit.

Giuseppe Iadisernia followed Sontheimer out the door soon after. He was all in with the nut flush draw against Bryn Kenney’s top pair. There was no heart on the turn or the river and Iadisernia was out shortly after Sontheimer.

Jake Schindler had one of poker’s most unfortunate coolers when he ran his pocket kings into Dan Smith’s pocket aces. Schindler was the first American casualty of the day’s action and was out in level 4.

Christoph Vogelsang, the 2017 champion of this event, won’t be making an appearance on Day 2. It’s almost entirely because of his clashes with David Peters. Vogelsang ran a bluff with queen-eight suited against Peters’ pocket aces. That cost him his second add-on and then Peters got the rest of the chips when Vogelsang flopped a pair and a flush draw with the same queen-eight of spades. He couldn’t improve against Peters’ top pair and he was eliminated.

Ben Yu and Dominik Nitsche busted in level 7. Yu was all in with ace-10 against Seth Davies’ king-queen. A queen on the flop cemented Yu’s fate and he was out. Nitsche shoved blind vs. blind on Dan Smith with 10-six of diamonds but ran into Smith’s ace-10.

In the final level of the day, Bill Klein and Cary Katz busted. Klein lost a flip to Salomon and Katz moved all in with a straight draw against Fedor Holz’s top set. They were both eliminated with just a few minutes left in the day.

The final 27 players will return on Tuesday at 5 p.m. ET to play down to the final table. Poker Central will have live updates right here and you can watch the action using your PokerGO subscription.