At the end of the day the players with the biggest smiles are quite often the same players with the bulging bags of chips. There were plenty of big stacks around the room, but at the end of the day Tim “Tmay420″ West seemed to be one of the most interested in telling people how he finished the day.

The starting stack was 20,000. West bagged up a grand total of 19,975 at the end of play, going through a full 5 levels and 10 hours of play to move only one of the smallest denomination of chips from his stack. West (left) is known for being patient, easily qualifying for the biblical reference of “having the patience of Job.” He will be back on Monday to see what he can do with his stack in day 2 play.

West wasn’t alone in finishing with less than the starting stack. Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar would be happy to trade chip bags with West at this point. Aguiar was short stacked for a majority of the day, but stayed calm late in the day when many players would have become over aggressive and been sent packing instead of packing up their chips at the end of play. Aguiar was in a pot with Andy Bloch late in the last level. Another player had opened for 1,200 and Jonathan called from the cutoff. Bloch also called from the big blind and the three players saw a Q77. The initial bettor checked to Aguiar who bet 2,225. Bloch called and the other player got out of the hand.

With the 5 on the turn Aguiar checked to Bloch who checked behind. The J river brought another check from Aguiar but Bloch decided to bet out and tossed in a 5k chip. With a pained look on his face Aguiar counted out his chips, discovering he had exactly 11,700 left and if he made the call and lost he would have less than 7k remaining. After another 10 seconds or so he tossed his hand in, living to fight another day both figuratively and literally (well, literally in the sense of making another day in the poker tournament).

Aguiar was able to grab a small pot or two in the last few hands of play to chip up to 13,250 for an end of day count.

Here are how some of the other players finished up the day:
Scott “R_A_Y” Montgomery - 81,650
Scott “emptyseat88″ Fischman - 70,650
Chris “Moorman1″ Moorman - 53,700
Ben Grundy - 46,000
Isaac Haxton - 35,500 (right)
Isaac “mr. menlo” Baron - 34,550
Peter “#1Pen” Neff - 27,200
Tim “Tmay420″ West - 19,975
Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar - 13,250

Final Numbers: 159 players started the day with 86 making it through Day 1A. Full end of day chip counts are available here.

Here are the top 10:

• September 27, 2008 -- Baron Doubles, Last Level
• September 29, 2008 -- Finish Strong, Day 2 Complete
• September 29, 2008 -- Heating Up
• September 27, 2008 -- Shuffling Tables