There are just a few tables left in the $5,000 World Poker Tour (WPT) Rolling Thunder Main Event as the tournament heads into its third day. Jake Schwartz is the chip leader of the remaining 32 players with 965,000 chips. He had nearly a 200,000 chip lead over defending champ and reigning WPT Player of the Year, Erkut Yilmaz, who has 788,000 chips.
When registration finally closed, the field totaled 250 entries, generating a prize pool of $1,162,500. First prize is $279,270 and the top 32 players will make the money; min-cash is $9,085.
Schwartz has almost $2.9 million in live tournament earnings, but he has never won a major tournament. In fact, he has only recorded tournament victory to his credit.
“It’s not unfamiliar territory, but closing is unfamiliar territory,” Schwartz told WPT.com of his current position. “So I’m going to try work on that and run good and bring it to Day 4. It’s always awesome to have a shot at it. I’m grateful for these opportunities and honestly, it’s about time I do something with one of these shots. Hopefully this is the one.”
His best tournament cash is for $412,187, when he finished fourth in the 2015 WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic Main Event.
Schwartz had an all-around solid day on Sunday (no kidding), but the point where he really started moving was during level 15. With a flop of T-3-2, Steven Sarmiento bet 10,000 and Schwartz raised it up to 29,000. After getting the clock called on him, Sarmiento four-bet to over 100,000. Schwartz then shoved and Sarmiento called all-in.
Sarmiento had gone into the tank either as an acting job or to ponder how much to bet in order to keep Schwartz in the hand, as he flipped over two red Aces.
Schwartz had just J-T, good for top pair. The turn was another Ten, giving Schwartz trips and the river was of no help to Sarmiento, who was eliminated from the competition.
At that point, Jake Schwartz was up to 580,000 chips.
The plan for Monday is to play from 32 players all the way down to the six-handed final table.
2020 World Poker Tour Rolling Thunder Main Event – Day 2 Chip Leaders
- Jake Schwartz – 965,000
- Erkut Yilmaz – 788,000
- Kevin Rabichow – 629,000
- Donald Maloney – 608,000
- Robert Heidorn – 575,000
- Quy Dao – 567,000
- Adam Sutch – 565,000
- Peter Neff – 547,000
- Jim Collopy – 464,000
- Tyler Patterson – 434,000
