The Field Begins to Spread Out
Walking around the room, there's still very much a sense here that few players have busted out (as it should be in a high buy-in event with a deep structure in Level 2). Still, some stack spread is turning up.
Shirley Rosario, after her early flopped set, has continued to add to her stack and is up to about 45,000. At the table behind her, Joao "joao bauer" Neto, who made the final table at LAPT Sao Paulo, is also north of the 40,000-chip mark. Two seats to Neto's right is New Zealander James Honeybone, who was all in just a few moments ago against the player two seats to his right. On a flop of , and with 6,100 in the middle pre-flop, that player led into Honeybone for 5,000. Honeybone tanked for about two minutes before shoving all in for about 12,000. That shove took down the pot.
LAPT Brazil champion Alex Manzano is also flying high at the start. He's up to 28,000 already.
At the other end of the spectrum, Team PokerStars Pro Andre Akkari took a small hit when he ran pocket jacks into pocket kings and gave his opponent 4,000 chips of value on a board that ran out . Akkari's opponent checked behind on the river, otherwise the damage may have been worse. His fellow Team Pro Angel Guillen didn't fare much better, losing almost as many chips to a player who flopped a flush with , . Guillen called 575 on the flop in position, bet 1,250 on the turn after his opponent checked, then snap-called a bet of 1,825 on the river.
One recent late arrival to the field: defending champion Jose "Nacho" Barbero.