A total of 60 entries were made on day 1A of the 2024 Card Player Poker Tour $300,000 guaranteed no-limit hold’em main event at The Venetian® Resort Las Vegas, adding $57,600 to the prize pool. The $1,100 buy-in tournament sports three starting flights, with 12.5% of the field making the money. In the end, 8 players advanced to day 2, each being guaranteed at least a min-cash.
Each player began with 40,000 in chips to play with during the 40-minute blind levels. Late registration and re-entry were available through the start of level 10. Nearly 12 hours after cards first got in the air, the day concluded with the elimination of 2023 Mid-States Poker Tour Venetian winner Sergei Kislinski.
Kislinski three-bet for around 200,000, leaving just 5,000 behind. His A-K was leading the K-Q of Anthony An, who went ahead and put the remaining 5,000 in before the flop was dealt. The board brought two queens to give An trips and the knockout. He moved into the chip lead with 766,000 while Kislinski hit the rail in 9th place to burst the bubble and bring the day to a close.
An (pictured above) is just a couple weeks removed from one of his largest tournament scores. He placed sixth from a field of 3,817 entries in the Mega Millions XXVII, earning $71,685. He’ll be looking to add to his $493,000 in career earnings with another deep run in this event.
Bracelet winner Francis Anderson bagged up the second-largest stack with 385,000. The 2024 WSOP $800 buy-in Independence Day Celebration Event champion has over $3.3 million in prior earnings, and a good shot to add to this in a big way over the next few days.
Matt Affleck, who finished 15th in the 2010 WSOP main event, is in the middle of the pack with 268,000.
Notables who took a seat on day 1A but were unable to bag included two-time bracelet winner and Card Player publisher Barry Shulman, 2021 World Poker Tour Venetian main event winner Qing Liu, two-time bracelet winner Shannon Shorr, Darren Rabinowitz, recent Poker Masters kickoff event winner Spencer Champlin, Venetian all-time poker tournament money leader Eric Baldwin, 2024 CPPT Venetian January main event third-place finisher Michael Rossitto, recent Poker Masters $15,100 buy-in event winner Brock Wilson, and recent Poker Masters $10,100 buy-in event winner Jeremy Becker.
There was 00:19 remaining in Level 15 (3,000-5,000 with a big blind ante of 5,000) when play concluded.
Tournament play continues with Day 1B beginning Friday, Sept. 20 at 11:10 AM local time. Registration will once again be open, with re-entries available, until the start of Level 10. Day 2 will begin Sunday at 11:00 AM.
Here is a look at the chip counts from day 1A:
| Rank | Player | Chip Count |
| 1 | Anthony An | 766,000 |
| 2 | Francis Anderson | 385,000 |
| 3 | Amit Shah | 358,000 |
| 4 | Sergio Ribeiro Dantas | 333,000 |
| 5 | Matt Affleck | 268,000 |
| 6 | Mario Pichler | 247,000 |
| 7 | Hal Marcus | 76,000 |
| 8 | Kevin Theodore | 28,000 |