The 2012 World Series of Poker is officially at its halfway mark with two tournaments on Saturday in their second day of play. Both events will crown a champion at some point this evening, officially wrapping up the first 30 events of the 61-tournament schedule.
Event #29 – $1000 Seniors’ No Limit Hold’em Championship
462 players came back on Saturday from the massive 4128 player field that started the tournament on Friday with a bit of work to do. First, the players would have to work down to the 423 players who would get some money for their efforts, then the players would have to work as close to the final table as possible before the end of play for the night.
The first part of the equation was taken care of within an hour of the start of Day Two. During hand for hand play, Joe Camarota and Roy Rice were eliminated simultaneously, leaving them to split the $1858 423rd place money. After their eliminations, the floodgates opened up and players started marching out of the Amazon Room in droves.
Hal Lubarsky, Meng La, Toto Leonidas and Humberto Brenes would be some of the more well-known players knocked out in the min-cash range, while two notable names began their charge up the leaderboard. Allyn Jaffrey Shulman was able to get a key double up, her A-K running down her opponent’s pocket eights, and she would use those chips to march on through the remainder of the day. Hoyt Corkins and Dennis Phillips were two players who steadily pushed forward on Saturday and they will also come back on Sunday for action.
They will have a daunting task on Sunday, however, if they are to catch the chip leader. Kevin DeTienne bagged up 1.325 million in chips by the end of play early this morning, leaving him the dominant stack in the Seniors’ Event.
1. Kevin DeTienne, 1.325 million
2. Radwan Khuri, 686K
3. John Freemon, 678K
4. William Stabler, 671K
5. Allyn Jaffrey Shulman, 646K
6. Dennis Phillips, 576K
7. Hoyt Corkins, 541K
8. Martin Fitzmaurice, 530K
9. Harold Kruger, 507K
10. William Thomson, 442K
The eventual champion on Sunday will earn a WSOP bracelet and a $603,713 payday.
Event #30 – $1500 No Limit Deuce to Seven Draw Lowball
Of the 285 runners who came to the line on Friday to start this tournament, only 66 were left for Day Two action on Saturday. Michael Mizrachi was atop the leaderboard at the start of the day, stacked with 86,025 in chips, while Andrew Lichtenberger and Brandon Cantu were sitting behind him in second and third places, respectively. Mizrachi got off to a good start on the day, eliminating Paul Volpe to push his stack above the 100,000 mark, while Cantu went the other way in doubling up Nicholas Verkaik.
That would be the last misstep of the day for Cantu, however. Cantu would get a measure of revenge against Verkaik, eliminating him short of the money, and continued his upward move by knocking out Lee Watkinson and taking some chips from Lichtenberger in the same hand. He was also responsible for getting the players to the money in eliminating Todd Bryson from the tournament.
At this point, Mizrachi would still have the lead over Cantu, but it seemed that Cantu was just getting his engines warmed up. He dumped Galen Hall in 32nd place to move up to 112K in chips as he and “The Grinder” continued to joust for the lead. Mizrachi would continue to mow down players, taking out Jennifer Harman in nineteenth, while Cantu bumped Richard Castro out in eighteenth to continue the leader fight.
It was inevitable that the two would butt heads and, once they did, the leader of the tournament changed. After both stood pat, Cantu showed a 9-7-5-4-3 to take a critical hand then, down to eight players, took another pot off of Mizrachi to push his way over the 300K mark. Although Mizrachi would eliminate John Phan in eighth place to get to the final table, he will be looking up at Cantu today with several strong opponents waiting in the wings should he or Cantu make a mistake.
1. Brandon Cantu, 336,100
2. Rep Porter, 233,400
3. Michael Mizrachi, 206,800
4. Erick Lindgren, 185,600
5. Andrew Lichtenberger, 161,100
6. Larry Wright, 116,200
7. Ryan Tepen, 51,100
The winner of this Lowball event tonight will take down a $101,975 bankroll boost but, most importantly, will also receive the crowning achievement in tournament poker, the WSOP bracelet.