Day 2C of the WSOP Main Event provided more brutal attrition taking the number of players still with chips left in front of them down to 1,824. All will assemble in a single room to play Day 3, with Amar Anand starting as chip leader.
Phil Hellmuth has also made it through to Day 3, albeit with a middling stack of just under 90,000 chips. Scotty Nguyen, Joe Hachem, Ryan Reiss and Jim Bechtel are four other former Main Event winners who still have a chance of repeating their achievement. Bechtel won the event in 1993, four years after Hellmuth became the youngest winner up to that time.
Spanish player, Adrian Mateos, finished the day with 285,000 chips. He is just 21 years old, but won the bracelet for the WSOP Europe Main Event in 2013. If he can parlay his skills and chip stack into a victory here, he will repeat Hellmuth’s experience to become the youngest ever Main Event champion.
Play on Day 2C didn’t produce any stacks close to Anand’s pile of over 600,000 chips. The top stack was built by David Jackson whose resumé includes a final table appearance in event #55 last year. A fourth place finish earned him his largest WSOP cash of $183,498.
Brian Hastings will start the day in 13th position after only three players from Day 2C managed to earn stacks larger than his 367,300. Hastings has won two bracelets so far this series.
However, there is still a huge field to get through before the November Nine are decided. Daniel Negreanu remains in the event, as does JC Tran, Daniel Alaei and Matt Glantz is more than just surviving. He has built a big 306,000 chip stack.
The former options trader specializes in high stakes cash games but has yet to win a WSOP bracelet despite racking up $2,627,871 in WSOP winnings.
Dan “Jungleman” Cates also made it through to Day 3, but not without some irritation on the way. After losing a few hands he became snappish at the table saying that he was bored with how slow the play was. Cates is used to playing the highest nosebleed stakes in online cash games, and sounded ready to get back to them. Just to add to his woes, he is listed as Daniella Cates in the WSOP chip counts web page.
Bertrand “ElKy” Grospellier was one big name internet player who didn’t make it through the day. He was in good company, former Main Event champions Jamie Gold, Huck Seed, Peter Eastgate and Robert Varkonyi were all sent to the rail.
Phil Ivey has been noticeable by his absence from most WSOP events this year. He took part in the High Roller for ONE DROP, but busted out early, and he has now managed to be one of the early casualties of the Main Event too.
With the new payout structure in place that pays at least $15,000 to players who finish in the top 1,000, the money bubble will break unusually early this year. There is a very good chance that it will be reached during today’s play as only another 824 players have to bust before the remainder can lock in a profit.
The tournament organizers are guessing that the bubble boy or girl—who traditionally wins a free ticket to next year’s Main Event—will be dealt their final hand in the third or fourth blind level.
