It was a long day at the World Poker Tour (WPT) Jacksonville bestbet Open Main Event on Sunday as it took nearly thirteen hours to narrow the Day 2 field from 101 to just 19 before calling it a night. The money bubble burst with the 28th place elimination; thereafter everyone was guaranteed at least $6,725. The first player knocked out on Monday will receive $8,507; the payouts will jump up a bit to almost $10,000 for the next three eliminations after that. As this is not the largest of WPT events (total field is 258), only the top two finishers will break six figures with the winner taking home $206,041.
Leading the remaining 19 players is Jared Jaffee with 776,000 chips. Two other players, Jordan Cristos (699,000) and Nghia Le (604,000), have over 600,000. Really, though, it’s still anybody’s game. Of course, Jaffee and the rest of those at the top of the leaderboard have the best shot at making the final table, even those at the bottom still have a shot. To illustrate, Millard Hale is the short stack with 147,000 chips. But with blinds at antes starting on Monday at 5,000/10,000/1,000, he still has about 15 big blinds left. That’s certainly not good, but he still has at least a few hands before he has to make a desperation move. Also of note is that three of the bottom four stacks (including Hale) will be seated at the same table, so chip stack dynamics could play a major factor.
The chip leader, Jared Jaffee, is a one-man story line this week. He is going for back-to-back WPT titles at this very casino, which is still a relative newcomer to the tour. In November, he won the WPT Jacksonville bestbet Fall Poker Scramble, banking over a quarter million dollars. He also won a similar amount this past January when he finished fourth in the WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open Main Event in Atlantic City. In his career, Jared Jaffee has earned $1,626,915 on the live poker tournament circuit.
It should be a relatively short Day 3 on Monday, as the plan is to go from 19 players to the six-handed final table. Play is already underway at bestbet Jacksonville; we’ll see what happens and report back tomorrow with more poker action.
2014 World Poker Tour Jacksonville bestbet Open Main Event – Day 2 Chip Counts
1. Jared Jaffee – 776,000
2. Jordan Cristos – 699,000
3. Nghia Le – 604,000
4. Bryan Irish-Jones – 573,000
5. Sean Winter – 552,000
6. Nabil Hirezi – 520,000
7. Kevin Choe – 513,000
8. James Calderaro – 510,000
9. Faraz Jaka – 494,000
10. Ali Alawadhi – 441,000
11. Michael Palmer – 368,000
12. Brian Green – 325,000
13. Jason Mercier – 298,000
14. John Racener – 216,000
15. Luke Graham – 192,000
16. Dan Heimiller – 190,000
17. Dylan Wilkerson – 165,000
18. Adam Shuman – 154,000
19. Millard Hale – 147,000
* Thank you to wpt.com for tournament information and updates.
NOTE: Apologies for the delay in posting the article. Our admin site went down and just came back up at about 4:00pm ET.