Alaei Tops Last 50 on Day 2; Schwartz and Deeb Among Big Stacks in Event #52: $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship
A new record field was already set when Day 1 came to a close the previous night with nearly 500 players having entered Event #52: $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship. Another 26 players joined the action of the latest Championship Event of the 2019 World Series of Poker at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, which created a field of 518 entries and prize pool of $4,869,200.
After ten levels of 60 minutes each, the bubble burst and more than two dozen players headed to the payout desk to collect their money as the field was whittled down all the way to the last 50 hopefuls. Three WSOP bracelet winners sit at the top of the leader board in Daniel Alaei (1,985,000), Luke Schwartz (1,700,000), and Shaun Deeb (1,586,000).
Fresh off his maiden bracelet event victory in Event #49: $10,000 Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw Championship, Schwartz was among the 26 that started with a fresh stack of 60,000 and the Brit went through the day like a wrecking ball, narrowly missing out on the overnight chip lead. Deeb ran hot in the final level of the night to earn his big stack, busting Ben Lamb among others, while Alaei was responsible for the biggest pot of the tournament so far when eliminating Brandon Shack-Harris prior to the money bubble.
Another seven players amassed more than one million in chips including Adam Hendrix (1,219,000), Dash Dudley (1,199,000), Joel Feldman (1,196,000), Will Jaffe (1,179,000), James Park (1,173,000), Andjelko Andrejevic (1,116,000) and Patrick Mahoney (1,024,000).
Other WSOP bracelet winners that will return to the Amazon Gold section as of 2 p.m. local time on Monday, June 24, 2019, are Jeremy Ausmus (648,000), Tobias Ziegler (633,000), Scott Bohlman (624,000), Kevin Eyster (511,000), Daniel Fuhs (409,000), Sandeep Pulusani (316,000), Ryan D'Angelo (300,000), Vladimir Shchemelev (181,000) and David Halpern (146,000).
David Eldridge may still be multi-tabling when Day 3 kicks off, as he ran back and forth between his seats in the PLO Championship and the Monster Stack, and he bagged up chips in both tournaments. The returning blinds for level 21 will be 10,000/20,000 and all 50 remaining hopefuls already have $17,837 locked up, but the elusive gold bracelet and a top prize of $1,086,967 await for the eventual champion in two days.
Among those to bust after the money bubble has burst were Martin Kozlov, Joshua Tieman, David "Bakes" Baker, Peter Costa, Ben Lamb, Bryce Yockey, Anthony Zinno and Kahle Burns.
With more than 270 players taking a seat for Day 2, it was inevitable that some of the biggest names in poker wouldn't make the cut. Stephen Chidwick entered before the cards got in the air and lasted one hand. Brian Hastings, David Benyamine, Phil Galfond, Phil Ivey, Jeff Lisandro, Robert Mizrachi, Ben Yu, Layne Flack, and Daniel Negreanu were just some of those that had to leave empty-handed having failed to make the money.
Brandon Shack-Harris entered Day 2 with a stack of just 40,000, twenty big blinds in the first level of the day. He quickly more than tripled up and from there on consistently built his stack. However, one big clash with Daniel Alaei sent Shack-Harris to the rail without cash. On a queen-high turn with two flush draws, Shack-Harris ended up all in with the nut straight and Alaei eventually called with top set and a hearts flush draw. The river paired the ten and that propelled Alaei into a commanding lead just a few spots on the money bubble.
It took nine hands on the bubble itself to secure a min cash of $15,029 and it was Ray Henson that ended up as the bubble boy when he got it in with flopped top two pair only to be crushed Scott Bohlman's top set. The final two levels of the night reduced the field at a rapid pace and all those that bagged and tagged will be back tomorrow to attempt to play down to the final six.
Stay tuned to find out who will make it to the Thunderdome, as the PokerNews team will be on the floor to cover all the action.