Arizona State Poker Championship Day 1c Pushes Field to 2,881 Entries
Jacob McDonald and Hunter Campbell topped 1.1 million chips as the penultimate flight set up the last chance to bag
The Arizona State Poker Championship added 1,114 entries in Day 1c at Talking Stick Resort, bringing the 2026 event to 2,881 total entries and 346 Day 2 bags. The penultimate starting flight sent 134 more players through, leaving just the final flight before Monday’s Day 2 restart.
As reported on Aug. 15, the event had sat at 1,767 entries through the first two flights, with 212 players already bagged and Gregory Brown leading the way. According to PokerNews, all 69 tables in the Arena Poker Room were dedicated to the tournament for about five hours, and the field was playing for a prize pool described as nearly $3 million with one flight still to come.
Day 1c ended with 11:18 remaining in Level 17 at blinds of 5,000/10,000. Day 2 was set to reset to 5:40 remaining in Level 16 at 4,000/8,000 unless the final flight finished faster.
Jacob McDonald finished with 1,150,000 chips, Hunter Campbell bagged 1,116,000, and Pedro Salomao and Deepa Shah each advanced with 1,041,000. Jeremy Becker also cracked the top ten with 681,000.
The bubble burst when 136 players remained and 134 were set to advance, after Eric Bunch ran his pair of nines into aces. Bunch had already bagged 50,000 in the previous flight, while Shah crossed seven figures during the stone-bubble stretch.
John Ciccarelli also picked up a big pot when his rivered set of queens beat Danny Noam. Matthew Blagg later took out Andrew Ostapchenko with aces, leaving the field at 150 players and 16 spots from the money at that point.
