Brad Owen Chasing First Major Poker Title; Bubble Bursts at WPT Tampa
At around 4:15 p.m. in Tampa on Sunday, the 148th place finisher in the $3,500 buy-in World Poker Tour Seminole Hard Rock Main Event was eliminated, effectively bursting the bubble.
The tournament, which attracted 1,165 entrants, improbably enough the exact same turnout as last year, still has a number of high-profile players in it, including poker vlogger Brad Owen, who bagged one of the biggest stacks following Sunday's Day 2 session.
Is it Finally Brad Owen's Time to Win a Major Poker Tournament?
Owen, a WPT ambassador and co-owner of The Lodge Card Club in Texas, has been a successful poker player and content creator for quite some time. But the cash game specialist has never won a major tournament title, although that could come to an end this week in Florida.
"I've been running hot the past week, this has been the best week of my life in poker," Owen told PokerNews after bagging chips on Day 2. "I won a 2,154-player bounty tournament online that I was hosting on ClubWPT. The day before that, I won $12,000 in a big cash game."
The Northern California native who now resides in Las Vegas also finished in second place for $20,530 in an $1,100 no-limit hold'em event at the Seminole Hard Rock Tampa. He now has over $76,000 in live poker tournament cashes, according to Hendon Mob, and will add onto that this week. We just don't yet know how much.
"And now I'm bagging a big stack," Owen continued. "I'm trying not to think about it too much. I'm going to go out to dinner with my girlfriend and celebrate a little bit, try and get some sleep, and come back for Day 3."
Wade Leads the Way
Owen, along with the other 98 players who advanced from Sunday's session, will return to action at noon ET on Labor Day, and the pay jumps will soon become massive. Should the poker vlogger finish in the top eight, he would more than double his previous live tournament results.
Day 2 was a huge day for the WPT ambassador, and he played well, but he said he didn't play a perfect game of poker. In one hand, he explained, he five-bet with pocket aces, a self-proclaimed mistake because in doing so he forced his opponent off ace-king. "I should have just called the four-bet," he said, hindsight being 20/20.
But he will enter Day 3 with 1,150,000, about 76 big blinds (10,000-15,000). Corey Wade bagged the chip lead at 1,945,000, a fairly sizable distance from second place David DiBernardi, who wrapped up play with 1,545,000.
All remaining players are guaranteed at least $7,100, but the winner, to be determined on Wednesday, will take home $615,500.
When play resumes on Monday, there will be some familiar faces among those still battling for a World Poker Tour title. That includes David Jackson (820,000), Brock Wilson (815,000), Loni Hui (530,000), and Larry Ormson (300,000).
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Photos courtesy of Drew Amato/WPT
