Big Stax 300 (Day 1B): First Look At Chip Counts

Level 5 (Blinds 200/400/50)
Total Day 1B Entries: 221

The first starting flight of this event started off pretty slowly, with nobody separating themselves from the field until John Wickizer (Philadelphia, PA) began to take flight.  John accomplished a rare feat, basically holding onto the chip lead from wire-to-wire (well at least from when we first started noticing him).  Today's Wickizer is Darren Clarke, who has over 130,000 at the moment, and it clearly the chip leader in this early field.  Clarke doesn't have much competition at the moment, and could be the only player above 100,000.  Here are some other counts tallied from the midway point of Level 5:

Matt McLaughlin - 82,000
Ben Coren - 70,000
Gregory Whiting - 65,000
Joseph McKeehen - 64,000
Jamie Kestetter - 63,000
Sheri Moores - 55,000
Alan Kraut - 51,000
Richard DeVivo - 50,000
Ilya Ekshtut - 47,000