2016 PokerStars Festival - New Jersey

The Main Event of the inaugural PokerStars Festival New Jersey continued on Wednesday and drew 127 players, bringing the total field size to 208 players. The total prize pool is set at $201,760, with the top 39 places being paid and first place is set at $38,220. After 10 one-hour levels on Day 1B, just 45 players bagged and will join the 25 players who survived on Day 1a.

Bagging the Day 1b chip lead was Michael Gagliano with 144,900, putting him fourth in chips of the 70 remaining players. The rest of the top five Day 1b stacks are rounded out by Dan Howe (138,900), Tyson Apostol (135,200), Team PokerStars Online's Randy Lew (130,200), and Darren Elias (118,900).

Gagliano, who won Event #2 here a few days ago, had just more than a starting stack at the dinner break, but eliminated PokerStars MindSports Ambassador Jennifer Shahade to help propel his stack. Shahade raised, Gagliano defended his big blind with , and after the flop was checked he turned a ten-high straight. Shahade called his turn bet, then his river shove, and she was eliminated. Gagliano had just more than 50,000 that hand and went on a heater to end the night, nearly tripling his stack from that point.

Among those who failed to punch their ticket to Day 2 include Ari Engel, Theo Tran, Jon Borenstein, "Boston" Rob Mariano, Alex Foxen, Scott Baumstein, Shankar Pillai, Nick Palma, and Team PokerStars Online's Jaime Staples.

Play resumes tomorrow at 11 a.m. where another 10 one-hour levels are scheduled to be played.

Players will play three more hands at each table before bagging for the night.

Michael Gagliano won the first event here, a $2,200 six-max, and he's looking to keep the success flowing with another good result. He's up to 155,000 after dragging a pot worth over 70,000 on a board of . Gagliano checked in the small blind and an opponent in the cutoff thought awhile before checking back. Gagliano showed queens full and dragged the pot.

Prize pool information has been made available. The winner of the event will take home $38,220, while a min-cash in 39th will be worth $1,576.

Randy Lew raised to 3,000 from the hijack, John Mirkovich three-bet shoved from the cutoff for about 13,500, and Lew called with , trailing Mirkovich's .

The board came down , giving Lews eights full of tens to score the elimination.

Three players checked an flop, and big blind Daniel Sewnig fired 6,000 on the turn. Tom Pschar called from under the gun, and the third player mucked. The river was an and Sewnig checked. Pschar bet 5,000 and Sewnig moved in for about 36,000 effective. Pschar stacked all of his chips in one tower and tanked about two minutes before putting them in the middle.

Sewnig turned over for a counterfeited two pair, and Pschar showed for trips. Sewnig had crumbs remaining and busted in short order.

Robert Cheung opened and then called the shove of a player in the hijack who had about 10,000. Cheung held and was up against . The board ran out clean for him and he collected the pot.