It was a long, long, long Day 2 at the 2014 World Series of Poker (WSOP) $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop Event as play dragged on into the wee hours of Tuesday morning before it was time to call it a night (or almost day). The plan for Monday was to narrow the field of 31 remaining players to the official final table of eight, but as it was already four in the morning and there were still nine players remaining, tournament officials made the decision to call it quits and return on Tuesday. Leading the group is Rick Salomon of Paris Hilton sex tape fame with 23,575,000 chips.
Not all of the players were extremely happy with the decision to stop before the ninth place elimination, but there was nothing they could do about it. At first all nine except Tobias Reinkemeier said that they wanted to keep playing, but then Reinkemeier agreed to go along with everyone and that he just wanted to take a break. WSOP officials, though, held firm and made Level 19 the last of Day 2. It doesn’t sound like any players were up in arms about it, but it is probably a bit of an annoyance, particularly for the shorter stacks, as only eight of the remaining nine players will make the money; one will be the bubble boy and it will not be enjoyable for that one person to have had to come back for another day only to leave empty handed. Additionally, the final table will be pushed back because of how long Day 2 took, creating potential scheduling issues for players.
In looking at the chip counts going into Day 3, there is a stark contrast between the top and bottom of the standings. The top four players are all closely bunched; the chip stacks of Salomon, Reinkemeier, Daniel Colman, and Daniel Negreanu only range from 23,575,000 to 20,700,000. But after Negreanu, there is a steep drop to Cary Katz in fifth place, who has just 9,125,000. After him, Scott Seiver, Tom Hall, Christoph Vogelsang, and Paul Newey all have between 8,250,000 and 4,050,000 chips.
There will be no repeat final table members from 2012, which is slightly surprising, considering Sam Trickett, the 2012 Big One for One Drop runner-up, had a huge chip lead after Day 1 and the 2012 champ, Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari, was in fifth place with a very healthy chip stack.
The winner of the 2014 WSOP Big One for One Drop tournament will receive $15,306,668, with second place getting $8,288,001. In other words, while coming in second is nice, you REALLY want to hold on for the victory in this event. Eighth place will win $1,306,667, so those short stacks will be fighting hard to make sure they profit at least $300,000 instead of walking away $1,000,000 in the hole.
Play will resume at 3:00pm local time.
2014 World Series of Poker Big One for One Drop – Day 2 Chip Counts
1. Rick Salomon – 23,575,000
2. Tobias Reinkemeier – 22,825,000
3. Daniel Colman – 22,625,000
4. Daniel Negreanu – 20,700,000
5. Cary Katz – 9,125,000
6. Scott Seiver – 8,250,000
7. Tom Hall – 7,775,000
8. Christoph Vogelsang – 7,075,000
9. Paul Newey – 4,050,000
* Tournament information courtesy WSOP.com.
