Two tournaments at the 2012 World Series of Poker saw their Day Two action on Wednesday. Event #3, the $3000 Heads Up No Limit Hold’em/Pot Limit Omaha tournament, is down to its final eight, while Event #4, the $1500 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo battle, will face a long day in determining its champion.
Event #3 – $3000 Heads Up No Limit Hold’em/Pot Limit Omaha
With the 64 combatants coming back on Wednesday, everyone was in the money for a minimum payday of $3395. No one was happy with that, of course, looking instead to making it to the Elite Eight (winning three matches) on their way to the $207,708 first place prize and the WSOP bracelet.
The field was replete with top players in pursuit of the championship, with several of those professionals squaring off with each other in the Round of 64. David Chiu would face off against Gregg Merkow and the Matt Jarvis/Guillaume Darcourt fight would draw some attention, but the duo that proved to be the highlight of the early action was Justin Bonomo versus Mike Sexton.
Sexton got off to a slow start in the match, using up both of his rebuys while Bonomo sat on his with a lead. In the Hold’em segment, however, the Poker Hall of Famer was able to reverse his fortunes and defeat Bonomo in dramatic fashion. With the victory, Sexton joined John Racener, Leif Force, Andy Frankenberger, Josh Arieh, Annette Obrestad, Yevgeniy Timoshenko and David Williams (facing each other in the Round of 32), Jarvis and Merkow among those in the Round of 32.
Immediately following his win over Bonomo, Sexton raced back over to the action in Event #3, where he was nursing an average stack, while the Heads Up matches were on break. This would be something that Sexton would do throughout the day on Wednesday, something a little more strenuous than his “day job” of commentating on the World Poker Tour broadcasts!
Once he came back to the Heads Up battle, Sexton easily crushed Andy Seth in making the Sweet Sixteen. Williams and Timoshenko had one of the biggest clashes of the round, with Timoshenko originally moving out to a led before Williams was able to fight back to take the match. Obrestad, Arieh and Frankenberger also would move on, but Jarvis would be knocked out in his pursuit of a second WSOP bracelet.
The Round of 16 saw Williams once again fall behind, this time to Simeon Naydenov, and this time he was unable to make the comeback. Facing Frankenberger, Sexton would also fall in his pursuit of a second bracelet. Arieh, in his match against Jason Koon, would be eliminated when Koon rivered an Ace with his A-J to defeat Arieh’s pocket Jacks in the Hold’em segment. Meanwhile, Obrestad cruised along, defeating Sebastian Saffari to reach the Elite Eight.
When the Elite Eight return at 1PM (Pacific Time) to determine a champion, the matchups will look like this:
Jason Koon vs. Annette Obrestad
Simeon Naydenov vs. David Benefield
Julian Powell vs. Gregg Merkow
Leif Force vs. Andy Frankenberger
Event #4 – $1500 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo
It was going to be a long Day Two for the Stud players. With 198 set to come back to the Amazon Room on Wednesday, the task of getting as close as possible to the eight handed Stud final table would more than likely mean that the survivors would play into the early morning hours. Sure enough, it wasn’t until the WSOP curfew was hit that play stopped with 23 players remaining.
William Carroll led the players at the start of Day Two, but he faced the daunting challenge of having two time WSOP bracelet winner Michael Mizrachi breathing down his neck in second place. Also in the mix were the defending champion of the tournament, Chris Viox, Jeff Madsen, Phil Ivey (making his triumphant return to the WSOP after last year’s self-imposed exile) and Sexton (runner-up in 2011 in this event and racing back and forth to Event #2).
The story of Day Two in this tournament wasn’t at the head of the leaderboard; it was in the ladies who made a charge from almost the brink of elimination. Poker Hall of Famer Linda Johnson began the day with a slim stack of 8700 chips in her possession. By the end of the action on Wednesday, however, Johnson had powered her way up the ladder to find herself in sixth place (175K) going into today’s action.
In another instance, Canada’s Xuan Liu – who has over $1 million in earnings on the European Poker Tour – was staving off the tournament reaper herself at the start of the day with only 8900 in chips. By the end of the carnage on Day Two, Liu would place herself atop the table, holding 330,500, an amazing run that only solidifies her standing as one of the up and coming players in the game, male or female.
Today’s final day of play will not be easy for anyone. With Chris Tryba (307,500), Chris Bjorin (220,500), former WSOP Player of the Year Frank Kassela (159K), Todd Brunson, Owais Ahmed, Women in Poker Hall of Famer Marsha Waggoner, Bonnie Rossi, Mizrachi and Sexton (among others) all amassed among the final 23, the Stud final table could potentially be one of the most exciting of the early going of the 2012 WSOP.
