April 08 2012, Paul Oresteen

Day 1 of the World Series of Poker Circuit Horseshoe Council Bluffs Main Event kicked off with two starting flights on Saturday. On Day 1a, 192 players took to the felt and 96 advanced to Day 2. Day 1b began with 88 players, and 42 moved on to Monday’s day of play. Casey Cavanaugh has the overall chip lead with a staggering 196,700, which is 60,000 more than his closest competitor.

Action for Day 2 is scheduled to start on Monday, April 9 at 11:00 a.m. CDT. Normally Day 2 would begin on Sunday, but due to the Easter holiday, it was pushed back a day.

Chasing Cavanaugh are Leonel Contreras (137,300), Shaun McBride (126,300), Mark Kroon (114,600) and Matt Longcor (108,400).

Council Bluffs is usually a smaller stop on the WSOPC tour but a number of seasoned pros turned up for the event. Mark “P0ker H0” Kroon, Bernard Lee, Scott Clements, Dennis Phillips, Kevin Saul, Garry Gates, Allen Kessler, Chris Bell, Amanda Musumeci, Drazen Ilich and Doug “Rico” Carli all made the trip to Iowa and will be moving on to Day 2. Jacob Bazeley and Roland Isra also made the trip, but failed to advance to Day 2.

Cavanaugh won two key hands that gave him the chip lead. On one hand, he made a full house holding pocket sevens on a board when his opponent held pocket threes. He doubled to over 130,000 at the point and only few minutes later he knocked out two players in one hand and pushed his stack to over 170,000.

Top 10 Chip Counts

The remaining 138 players will have a day off on Sunday for the Easter holiday. Day 2 action will kick off promptly at 11 a.m. CDT on Monday, and will play down to the final nine players or through Level 23, whichever comes first. Follow all the WSOPC action live on Pokernews.com.

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