Tom Burandt

The Minnesota State Poker Tour Main Event began on Saturday night at Jackpot Junction, and day one came to a close with 30 players remaining out of an 80-player field.

Top chip counts heading into Sunday:

Keith Doering – 131K
Michael Lewis – 106K
Adam Ahmann – 99K
Steve Peppin – 79K
Tom Burandt – 73K
Dan Hendrickson – 65K
Matt Kirby – 62K
Joe Big Bear – 50K
David Mandt – 45K

* Play resumes at 11:00 on Sunday

Here are the payouts:

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Photo courtesy of Poker News

Following Minnesotan Jason Senti’s deep run in the World Series of Poker Main Event has been fun over the last few days, but business has picked up. Big time.

Senti, who plays online as ‘PBJaxx’, dropped to 500K at one point when the blinds were 30K/60K — the low stack in the tournament with five tables remaining — but he now sits at 13.5 million with 27 players remaining heading into Saturday, when the November Nine will be decided.

Only three players have more chips:

Joseph Cheong – 24.4 million
Cuong Nguyen – 23.1 million
Pascal LeFrancois – 15.7 million
Jason Senti – 13.5 million

* Blinds – 60K/120K/15K

Michael Mizrachi (6.3 million), Scott Clements (7.3 million), Adam Levy (4.7 million), William Thorson (3.6 million), Johnny Lodden (1.5 million) and Hasan Habib (1.5 million) are the most notable players still alive. All remaining players are guaranteed at least $317,000. The winner will take home $8.9 million.

If you want to see how Senti built his stack, here’s a link to his hand highlights throughout the day. It was a steady climb, with a few fortunate breaks here and there.

Senti is tweeting about various hands as well, and you can follow his progress at @PBJaxx.

Senti plays professionally, but primarily sticks to online cash games — as high as $50/100 no-limit hold’em. He cashed in the WSOP heads-up event last year, beating Erik Seidel to advance to the money round. Senti is also a guitar player who plays in a local band.

Things are getting pretty serious at the World Series of Poker Main Event right now. With 78 players remaining, Theo Jorgensen leads the pack with 9.3 million chips. Michael Mizrachi lurks close behind with 5.3 million.

The lone Minnesotan, Jason Senti (St. Louis Park), pumped his stack up to 1.7 million at one point on day six yesterday, but he’s back down to 970,000 with blinds at 20k/40k/5k.

Everyone left is guaranteed at least $94,000.

Senti has a blog at BlueFirePoker.com, and he’s updated it with short posts all week. After yesterday’s play, Senti wrote, “Well, heading into day 7 in a few hours.  Day 6 didn’t go so well and I walked out with 30k chips less than I started the day with.  I am still in the Main Event with 79 players, though, so lets be happy about my 20bbs!  Gonna need a heater to last longer than a few hands tomorrow.  Its been a great run either way.”

You can follow his Main Event tweets at @PBJaxx.

Jason Senti, a cash game specialist from St. Louis Park, currently sits behind a stack of 1,005,000 chips with 205 players remaining in the WSOP Main Event. Senti ranks 87th, and blinds are set to be 8,000/16,000/2,000.

The chip leader is Evan Lamprea from Woodstock, Ontario, with 3,564,000. Other notables are Johnny Chan (2.5 million), Michael Mizrachi (1.7 million), Scott Clements (1.5 million), JP Kelly (1.4 million), Adam Levy (1.1 million), Phil Galfond (1 million), and possibly a few others.

You can follow Senti’s tweets on day six – @PBJaxx

WSOP.com provides live updates as well.

I’ll post a more comprehensive list of where Minnesotans cashed later today. Until then, the MSPT is underway at Jackpot Junction Casino.

Jason Senti

Heading into day five of the WSOP Main Event, 574 players remain out of 7,319. There are several big names still alive, including Phil Galfond and Johnny Chan, who sit among the chip leaders.

The money bubble burst around midnight central time, and Tony Dunst from Las Vegas, NV is the current chip leader at 1.5 million. Blinds are 3,000/6,000/1,000.

Minnesotans Terry Eischens and Jason Senti both have healthy stacks.

Terry Eischens (Shakopee) – 615,000
Jason Senti (St. Louis Park) – 579,000
Mark Lome (Eden Prairie) – 135,000

You can follow Senti’s progress via Twitter – @PBJaxx.

Scott Drill won a Heartland Poker Tour event back in February, 2006 for $62,740 at St. Croix Casino. He has well over $100,000 in career live tournament winnings, including three HPT cashes, a Fall Poker Classic cash, and a 12th-place finish in the 2008 Minnesota State Poker Championship.

Name: Scott Drill
Age: 57
Currently resides: Edina, MN
Occupation: CEO, Insignia Systems
Online name: Doesn’t play online
Favorite daily/weekly tournaments: Canterbury Saturday and Sunday tournaments
Future plans/goals: No big future plans. Enjoys the size of the fields in smaller tournaments. The World Series of Poker is too large. Just want to continue to enjoy playing poker.

Mike Pickett

The $10,000 buy-in World Series of Poker Main Event drew 7,319 players — the second-largest Main Event field in history (8,773 in 2006). There are 2,557 players remaining heading into Monday’s day 3.

With blinds at 500/1000/100, David Assouline (Hampstead, Quebec) is the current chip leader with 387,800.

There are a few Minnesotans going strong as well.

Marc Lome (Eden Prairie) – 165,000
Jason Senti (St. Louis Park) – 105,400
Mike Pickett (Minneapolis) – 81,200
Lance Harris (Apple Valley) – 56,700
Everett Carlton (St. Paul) – 46,000
George Shabatura (Plymouth) – 38,700
Robby Westrom (St. Paul) – 34,500
Brad Berman (Wayzata) – 27,000
Todd Melander (Minneapolis) – 13,000

The Minnesota State Poker Tour stops at Jackpot Junction Casino in Morton, MN, July 14-18. If you plan on playing, or if you are on the fence, here are the full details — with links to more information as well.

How to qualify: Players can either direct buy to the $1,100 two-day Main Event, or they can qualify for as little as $60 in a single-table satellite. Most players play in the $250 multi-table qualifiers, which send the top 20% to the Main Event.

Hotel info: Jackpot Junction Casino has its own hotel, and they are offering cheap rates for all MSPT players.

Event schedule: There are six multi-table qualifiers from Wednesday through Saturday, and single-table satellites run all day from Wednesday through Saturday as well.

Directions: Jackpot Junction is located about two hours west of Minneapolis.

If you have a group of 2-4 players and plan on coming to Jackpot Junction for the Minnesota State Poker Tour to play in satellites and qualifiers Wednesday through Saturday…til you can’t keep your eyes open…get a hold of me…I may be able to hook you up with a room!  Email:  bryan@mnpokermag.com

The World Series of Poker Main event began on Monday with Day 1A. You can follow regular updates at BluffMagazine.com. If you are a Minnesotan playing in the Main Event, feel free to email updates to phil@mnpokermag.com, or tweet updates to @MNPokerMag.

Event 47 – $1,000 NLH, 3,128 entrants
65th – Jeff Schnettler, St. Cloud, $5,292

This was Schnettler’s second cash of the 2010 WSOP. He also finished 54th in event 28 for $5,304.