Day 2 of the 2012 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event is a bit of an odd bird. During the last few years, there have been four Day 1 flights which transitioned quite naturally into two Day 2 flights. The survivors from two of the Day 1’s combined for one Day 2 and the survivors from the other two Day 1’s combined into a second Day 2. Easy. This year is different. With three Day 1 flights (Days 1A, 1B, and 1C), the math isn’t as simple. So, instead of combining the survivors from the Day 1’s into some mutant hybrid Day 2, there are simply three Day 2’s. Sounds good, and it is. But here’s the rub: Days 2A and 2B both took place on Tuesday. They were basically treated as two separate tournaments; the fields were kept in separate rooms and were never combined. Day 2C will be run today.
Emerging from the two Day 2 flights as the chip leader was France’s Gaelle Baumann, the only player to eclipse the half million chip mark, finishing the night with 505,800 chips. Hot on her heels is Mark Demirdjian with 499,900. Familiar faces amongst the chip leaders include Shaun Deeb (460,900 – 3rd place), Vanessa Selbst (350,400 – 10th), Jason Somerville (332,700 – 17th), Eugene Katchalov (330,900 – 18th), and Daniel Negreanu (277,200 – 39th).
The chip leader entering Day 2, William John, ran into trouble within the first few hours. He began play well in front of the field, about 80,000 chips ahead of the next closest competitor. But as we see every year, the early chip leader doesn’t stay there for long. The aforementioned Demirdjian was able to take a big pot from John to sink him down to 60,000 chips while taking the chip lead (370,000 at the time) himself. That night, Demirdjian finished off John and continued his successful Day 2A.
Other “names” still alive are Bernard Lee, actor Kevin Pollak, Gabe Kaplan, Eric Baldwin, Faraz Jaka, Amnon Filippi, Sammy Farha, Maria Ho, Gavin Smith, and Mike McDonald, among others.
Those who will have to find something else to do include Erik Seidel, Justin Bonomo, Mike Matusow, last year’s runner-up Martin Staszko, Billy Baxter, Scott Seiver, Mike Sexton, David Williams, Tony Dunst, and Chad Brown.
A total of 2,044 began play on Tuesday, 657 from Day 1A and 1,387 from Day 1B. When the chips were bagged and tagged at the end of the night, just 842 remained. 2,300 survivors from Day 1C will begin the competition in today’s Day 2C while those who advanced from Tuesday will get the day off. If eliminations occur at the same pace today, we’ll be looking at somewhere in the vicinity of 1,000 players going to bed happy tonight. All of the survivors from each Day 2 flight will combine into a single field for Day 3 on Thursday.
2012 World Series of Poker Main Event – Day 2A/2B Chip Leaders
1. Gaelle Baumann – 505,800
2. Mark Demirdjian – 499,900
3. Shaun Deeb – 460,900
4. Kevin Davis – 394,800
5. Jan Kasten – 391,800
6. Taylor Paur – 391,600
7. Matt Woodward – 381,000
8. Jacob Schindler – 371,600
9. Julio de la Rosa – 350,700
10. Vanessa Selbst – 350,400
