After turning in deep runs in the 2009 and 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Events, Matt “mcmatto” Affleck is making poker headlines once again. This time, he’s pacing the field of the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) Festa al Lago after two days of play. Affleck holds a stack of 585,300, just edging out the 536,800 belonging to fellow young gun Annette “Annette_15” Obrestad, a Full Tilt Poker pro.
One of the final eliminations of Saturday’s play at the Bellagio in Las Vegas belonged to Titan Poker pro Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi. As is typical in poker tournaments, Mizzi’s run came to an end in a race after running A-K into pocket jacks. The flop of Q-10-9 gave Mizzi a gutshot straight draw to a jack, but a king on the turn gave his opponent Broadway.
Also departing late in the day was Jennifer Tilly. She called all-in before the flop with A-Q and was up against the K-8 of spades belonging to Erik Cajelais. In a similar fate as Mizzi, Tilly’s opponent turned Broadway and Cajelais moved to 93 big blinds. He ended the day in 47th place on the Festa al Lago leaderboard at 125,300.
There were double-ups aplenty on Saturday at the Bellagio. Among those who vaulted up the leaderboard were David Singer, DoylesRoom pro Hoyt Corkins, and Michael Benvenuti. Corkins got his money in ahead with pocket aces against James St. Hilaire’s A-Q and hit a full house on the river. Despite the late double-up, he’s one of the low men on the totem pole entering Day 3, as his stack of 58,100 is the 80th largest out of 99 players remaining.
Obrestad was a force to be reckoned with on Saturday. She eliminated Marco Traniello with queens-up against jacks-up and scooped a 230,000-chip pot against Danny Schiff. In the latter hand, Schiff led out for 35,000 with the board reading Q-9-9-7-6 and Obrestad called, tabling A-Q. Schiff showed ace-high after his flush draw failed to come in and Obrestad extended her chip lead.
New WPT “Raw Deal” host Tony “Bond18” Dunst was eliminated after running pocket fours into pocket queens. His opponent, Ryan Young, flopped a set, but Dunst turned a set of his own to leave him drawing to one out on the river. Nevertheless, quads weren’t in the cards and Dunst was sent to the rails. Joining Dunst on the outside looking in yesterday were poker pros like Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little, Justin Young, Steve Sung, and Howard Lederer, who registered at the last minute.
Check out the stacked top 10 of the WPT Festa al Lago after two days of play:
1. Matt “mcmatto” Affleck – 585,300
2. Annette “Annette_15” Obrestad – 536,800
3. Owen “ocrowe” Crowe – 360,000
4. Trevor Pope – 286,700
5. Michael Benvenuti – 284,500
6. David Williams – 278,300
7. John Monnette – 271,400
8. Jeff Madsen – 269,200
9. Men “The Master” Nguyen – 263,500
10. Andreas Hoivold – 254,200
Other players remaining in the top 50 include:
17. Daniel Alaei -217,700
18. Barry Greenstein – 217,600
24. Vanessa Selbst – 203,500
25. Steve Zolotow – 201,900
28. Tom Marchese – 184,200
35. Steve “MrTimCaum” O’Dwyer – 157,100
38. Vivek “Psyduck” Rajkumar – 145,800
43. Nancy Todd Tyner – 134,000
47. Erik Cajelais – 125,300
After 335 players coughed up $10,000 each to enter, the top prize at the Festa al Lago is $831,000. The top 50 players will walk away with cash and every member of the six-handed televised final table will bank at least $112,000. Last year, 275 players took to the felts at a buy-in of $15,000, meaning that attendance jumped by 22% in 2010. However, the prize pool also dove by 16% to $3.3 million by virtue of the smaller price tag.
