Andrew “luckychewy” Lichtenberger, an accomplished live and online poker pro, will come armed to Day 3 of the $5,000 PokerStars North American Poker Tour (NAPT) Venetian Main Event on Monday with the top stack in the room.
Lichtenberger owns a stack of 618,700 chips and is one of just two players to have surpassed the 600,000-chip plateau. Lichtenberger scooped a large chunk of his chips after his pocket aces outlasted Lars Bonding’s pocket kings. Bonding, an accomplished pro in his own right, took down three Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza events leading up to the NAPT Venetian feature tournament. The three cashes, which occurred within a one-week span, were worth nearly $80,000 combined.
Andy “BKiCe” Seth, who was the chip leader after Day 1 in Las Vegas, sat in second position when the dust settled on Day 2. Seth had build an arsenal of 602,600 chips by the end of Sunday’s action and was helped in part by his pocket kings outlasting another player’s A-K. He was the first player to crack 500,000 in chips and ended the day with about 100,000 more.
Also near the top of the leaderboard is Steve “MrSmokey1” Billirakis, who holds the third largest stack at 591,200. Billirakis won the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Circuit Championship in Hammond two years ago for $208,000. One year prior, he took down his first bracelet by besting the pack in a $5,000 Mixed Hold’em event at the WSOP for $536,000, defeating two-time bracelet winner Greg “FBT” Mueller heads-up. Billirakis had just 40,000 chips entering the day on Sunday.
Jon “PearlJammer” Turner had a rocky ending to Day 2. After building his stack up to 500,000, Turner sank back down to 300,000. Turner called a 51,000 chip all-in with K-8 and found himself facing pocket nines. The board ran out 6-10-J-6-10 and Turner continued to bleed chips. He ended the day with just 85,100, good for 112th overall in the NAPT Venetian Main Event.
Moving up in the waning moments of Sunday’s play was Team PokerStars Pro front man Daniel Negreanu, who pushed all-in with pocket sevens and ran into an opponent’s pocket eights. Nevertheless, Negreanu hit quads when the flop came J-7-7 to push his stack to 50,000. However, Negreanu did not survive to see the end of the day. Despite Negreanu’s exit, Team PokerStars Pro will be well represented on Day 3 with 2004 WSOP Main Event winner Greg Raymer, 2009 National Heads-Up Poker Championship runner-up Vanessa Rousso, math whiz Bill Chen, and 1983 WSOP Main Event champ Tom McEvoy.
A total of 149 players remain, with the top 128 finishing in the money. Accordingly, the first order of business when play resumes on Monday will be bursting the money bubble. The minimum payout is $7,200 and a top prize of $827,000 is up for grabs. Here’s a look at the top 10 on the leaderboard, all of whom are sitting pretty to make the money:
1. Andrew “luckychewy” Lichtenberger – 618,700
2. Andy “BKiCe” Seth – 602,600
3. Steve “MrSmokey1” Billirakis – 591,200
4. David Miscikowski – 586,400
5. Jason “TheMasterJ33” Dewitt – 482,900
6. Eric Blair – 466,800
7. Mark Ketteringham – 460,000
8. Kyle Zartman – 430,800
9. Thomas Fuller – 408,500
10. David Paredes – 389,400
Other notable poker players who remain in the hunt in the NAPT Venetian Main Event include:
12. Men “The Master” Nguyen – 378,400
15. Nam Le – 364,100
20. Vanessa Rousso – 313,600
21. Steve “MrTimCaum” O’Dwyer – 307,100
22. Bill Chen – 304,200
24. Danny Wong – 296,700
25. “Miami” John Cernuto – 292,500
32. Dwyte Pilgrim – 259,000
36. Greg Raymer – 242,200
76. Paul Magriel – 139,400
85. Christian “charder30” Harder – 127,000
107. Jimmy “gobboboy” Fricke – 90,100
109. Andrew “good2cu” Robl – 88,600
131. Tom McEvoy – 62,500
143. Marco Traniello – 38,600
Play resumes today at 12:00 Noon PT at the Venetian in Las Vegas. Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest NAPT coverage.