Day Two of the World Poker Tour Championship event at the Bellagio in Las Vegas is in the books and, although the field is smaller than last year’s gathering, there are still several powerful contenders in place for a run at the title.
93 players came back on Sunday with Will “The Thrill” Failla holding down the lead over such players as Cliff Josephy, Jake Cody, defending champion Marvin Rettenmaier and recent WPT Montreal champion Amir Babakhani. These survivors had to contend not only with some players who came back for a second shot via the one re-entry rule on this $25,000 event (Jeremy Ausmus, Ben Lamb and Ben Hamnett all fired a second bullet, among others) but also a whole other list of newcomers entered the tournament. Brian Rast, Dan O’Brien, Galen Hall, Brock Parker, David “Chino” Rheem, Scotty Nguyen, Phil Hellmuth and Jason Mercier would all make it in under the cutoff for registrations, with varying degrees of success.
Making an early move on Sunday for the chip lead was a player who has had an outstanding first half of the 2013 tournament poker season, Dan Shak. After seeing a 7-5-2 flop, Joseph Ruzick bet out from the small blind and Shak three bet the action to 60K. Ruzick decided to take a stand after that, moving all in, while Shak made the call. Ruzick had an outstanding pair of Kings in the pocket, but Shak had the ultimate cooler in pocket Aces. The board would run out with no King on the turn or river and, after the chips were counted, Shak had doubled into the lead with 362K in chips and Ruzick was on life support.
Shak would not be seriously challenged until Mike Linster emerged from the pack. On a multi-player hand, Linster moved all in pre-flop and only found Allyn Jaffrey Shulman ready to look him up. Shulman held a strong Big Slick, which was racing against Linster’s pocket fives, and the board would not cooperate with Shulman. Once Linster raked in Shulman’s chips, he skyrocketed to 460K in chips and would continue to dominate throughout the night.
As Level 9 began, the registration for the event was closed and the numbers began to flow in regarding the entries as well as the prize pool. 146 entries were received for the tournament, falling short of last year’s 152, but the prize pool of over $3.5 million would make the effort worth it for those who cashed. The top 15 players will take down a minimum payday of $49,210, with the eventual champion walking off with a $1,150,297 bankroll boost.
After the registration period closed, the shorter stacked players began to take their long walk from the Bellagio tournament room. Nick Schulman, Chris Bjorin, Dominik Nitsche and Barry Shulman were some of the eliminations, but Hellmuth seemed to thrive on the conditions and improve on his late registration stack as the night wore on.
Hellmuth would first get a bump from eliminating Bill Klein in a pocket pair battle. Klein held Jacks but Hellmuth’s Queens were better as the board ran out without any surprises. Hellmuth would continue to add to that stack in finishing the day with over 300K in chips, potentially positioning himself for a nice run during Monday’s Day Three play.
The true story of the day, however, was the battle between Shak and Linster. Shak would work his way into the lead during the final hands of the night, making a Broadway straight against Matt Waxman’s two pair, but Linster would strike back. He rivered a pair of Aces against David “Doc” Sands on the next to last hand of the night, then tapped some more into his stack against Steve Silverman to end the night as the Day Two chip leader.
1. Mike Linster, 744,000
2. Dan Shak, 617,300
3. Antonio Esfandiari, 536,100
4. Steve Silverman, 513,200
5. Amir Babakhani, 491,000
6. Jake Cody, 453,500
7. Richard Harrock, 399,600
8. David “Chino” Rheem, 396,500
9. Rocco Palumbo, 395,200
10. Will Failla, 386,000
Hovering just under the Top Ten going into tomorrow’s Day Three are Faraz Jaka (385,300), AP Phahurat (314,500), Hellmuth (307,000), Jonathan Roy (290,000), Yevgeniy Timoshenko (237,100), Andrew Lichtenberger (232,100) and Rast (228,700), while such players as Lamb, Rettenmaier, Andy Frankenberger, Sands and Matt Giannetti hover under the average chip stack. Noah Schwartz (36,900), Jonathan Aguiar (49,100), Tom Marchese (52,500) and John Hennigan (64,900) have their work cut out for them on the short stacks.
On the Player of the Year battle, Matt Salsberg is still in the tournament with his 130,800 in chips, but several of his potential rivals are out in front of him. Esfandiari would need to make the final table and finish third or better to take the crown, while Babakhani, Roy, Schwartz, Marcin Wydrowski, Josh Hale and Ravi Raghavan would have to win the tournament to take over the top slot (and this is considering Salsberg doesn’t cash). The current second place player, Paul Volpe, is not in action at the WPT Championship.
The remaining 66 men will return to the felt at noon on Monday (Pacific Time) to continue the fight for the crowning achievement on the World Poker Tour schedule. The action will continue on throughout the week to the final table on Friday afternoon when the WPT Championship victor will be crowned, but for some it is on to the WPT Super High Roller (scheduled for Tuesday) and the beginning of the World Series of Poker later this month.
