Two days of play are in the books in the World Poker Tour (WPT) Hollywood Poker Open. Two-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) Circuit ring winner Dwyte Pilgrim paces the field.
Pilgrim owns a stack of 313,900 chips after two days of play, the lone survivor over the 300,000-chip plateau, and he increased his stack by ten-fold during the day. Towards the end of play, he mushroomed to nearly 200,000 in chips after calling a bet of 8,500 on a board reading 5-5-2-3. The river was the six of hearts, putting three of the suit on the board, and John Dolan led out for 17,500. Pilgrim promptly pushed the action to 49,500.
Then, the mind games began. Coverage found on the WPT’s website painted the picture of the scene at the Hollywood Casino outside of Cincinnati: “‘That’s the emotion I am looking for John,’ Pilgrim says. ‘I was worried until you did that.’ The two players continue to banter back and forth, with Pilgrim all but telling Dolan to let his hand go. When Dolan reaches for chips, Pilgrim immediately asks, ‘Why are you counting John?’” Dolan ultimately folded and Pilgrim flipped up K-J of hearts for a flush.
Second place in the WPT Hollywood Poker Open chip counts belongs to online poker pro Frank “Frank1The1Tank” Calo, who relegated Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler to the rails on Sunday. After a ten-high, two-heart flop, Kessler committed his chips with A-Q of the suit for the nut flush draw, while Calo held K-10 of hearts for top pair. Kessler could never catch up and Calo moved to 147,000 in chips. He ended the day with 260,000, still well short of Pilgrim’s field-leading stack.
Tyler Smith sits in third place on the leaderboard with two days down. He’s in search of his third WPT final table, having finished sixth in January’s Southern Poker Championship for $86,000 and taking fifth in the 2009 version of the same tournament for $134,000. Smith moved to 180,000 in chips late in the day after showing down A-6 on a board of J-10-4-6-2 for a pair of sixes. Shawn Buchanan turned over A-5 for air, surrendering the pot. Smith has a stack of 217,000 entering Day 3 on Monday.
A total of 38 players remain and the top 12 will finish in the money. Sunday’s play saw the field trimmed from 96 players and the top 10 stacks in the room are as follows:
1. Dwyte Pilgrim – 313,900
2. Frank “Frank1The1Tank” Calo – 260,000
3. Tyler Smith – 217,000
4. Len Ashby – 211,300
5. Craig Smith – 193,400
6. Ravi “govshark2” Raghavan – 190,500
7. Gevork Kasabyan – 182,100
8. Mike Mustafa – 179,300
9. Jerry Payne – 168,700
10. Carlos Mortensen – 159,800
With two WPT titles and two WSOP bracelets, Carlos Mortensen is arguably the most decorated player left in the hunt for the $393,000 first place prize. Mortensen won the 2001 WSOP Main Event for $1.5 million and captured his second bracelet two years later. Other notable players left in the mix include:
12. Erick Lindgren – 140,300
15. Eric “Rizen” Lynch – 125,800
25. Todd Terry – 81,200
26. Brian “SNo0oWMAN” Hawkins – 65,100
30. Tyler “puffinmypurp” Reiman – 44,800
34. Shawn Buchanan – 31,700
A bevy of brand name pros saw their WPT Hollywood Poker Open title hopes dashed on Sunday, including Team PokerStars Pro member Jason Mercier, Prahlad Friedman, 2009 WSOP dual bracelet winner Brock “t soprano” Parker, DoylesRoom pro and WPT Southern Poker Championship winner Hoyt Corkins, eight-time bracelet winner Erik Seidel, and Hollywood Poker Open Day 1 chip leader Eric Froehlich.
When play kicks off at 2:00pm ET on Monday, the blinds will be 1,000-2,000 with an ante of 300. Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest WPT results.
