Day 2 Concludes; David "ODB" Baker Leads Star-Studded Final 10
It was another fast-paced day in Event #59: $2,500 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball on Thursday as Day 2 played from 88 players all of the way down to 10. And what a line-up players remaining, led overnight by last year's third-place finisher in this same event, David "ODB" Baker.
The afternoon saw several familiar faces hitting the rail shy of the top 30 and the cash, with Jason Mercier, Joe Tehan, Steve Zolotow, Shane Schleger, Daniel Idema, David Bach, Scott Clements, Gavin Smith, and Tom Schneider among them.
Just before the dinner break Timothy Finne became the unfortunate 31st-place finisher to bubble the event, after which the march to the payout desk began with Ryan Tepen (30th) and Jon Turner (29th) simultaneously busting on the first post-bubble hand.
A couple of former bracelet winners soon followed in Naoya Kihara (28th) and Dario Alioto (27th), with a couple more — Marco Johnson (16th) and Konstantin Puchkov (14th) — among those lasting until the latter portion of the evening, as did start-of-day-2 chip leader Juijen Chang who ended his run in 13th.
Meanwhile it was three-time bracelet winner Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi emerging as the big stack during the early evening, and for a time it looked as though he'd likely end the night bagging the most of anyone. But David Chiu overtook him late, and then David "ODB" Baker passed them both to carry the lead to tomorrow's Day 3.
As mentioned, it's quite a line-up returning tomorrow, including no less than six WSOP bracelet holders in Baker (1), Chiu (5), Mizrachi (3), Scott Seiver (1), Eli Elezra (1), and 2013 WSOP Player of the Year contender Daniel Negreanu (5).
Action resumes at 2 p.m. on Friday. Be sure to return then to PokerNews to see who among this top group of players emerges to claim the Event #59 WSOP bracelet.