At first blush, it looks like only three players were eliminated on Day 2 of the World Poker Tour (WPT) World Championship Sunday. Because of the rather generous late registration rules, however, 32 more players bought-in to the tournament on Day 2, increasing the total field to 135 from Saturday’s 103. With 95 players remaining and five having been knocked out on the first day, that means 35 hit the rail Sunday (math is fun – someone please correct me if I’m wrong). Players can still register through the end of Level 12, which means that it won’t be too late to pay the $25,000 buy-in until the end of the day Monday. At that point, we will finally know what the prize pool looks like, as well as the first prize and the rest of the money distribution.
Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi tops the field with 428,200 chips and is the only player to end Day 2 with a stack greater than 400,000. Mizrachi is no stranger to success on the World Poker Tour, having two championships to his name. The first came in 2005 when he won $1,859,909 at the WPT L.A. Poker Classic, with the second coming the next year at the WPT Borgata Winter Open in Atlantic City ($1,173,373). He almost earned a third title earlier in the same month as his Borgata win, finishing as the runner-up to Scotty Nguyen at the 2006 WPT Gold Strike World Poker Open. Mizrachi is fourth on the all-time WPT money list with $4,242,065 in career earnings.
Perhaps the oddest hand of Day 2 occurred during first level of the day, Level 5. It wasn’t bizarre because of the crazy cards that were dealt or nutty betting, but rather it involved an unusually lengthy decision by a player with a very strong hand. Daniel Buzgon raised pre-flop to 1,300, Vanessa Rousso three-bet to 3,800, and Buzgon called. The flop was an interesting monochromatic one: Q♣-T♣-9♣. Rousso led out with a 5,500 chip bet and Buzgon made the call. The turn was the A♦. Rousso checked that one, Buzgon bet 9,750, Rousso then raised to 25,000, and Buzgon called after some serious thought. The river was the T♠, pairing the board. Rousso went into the tank to ponder her move, eventually deciding to bet 70,000 chips, an amount that put Buzgon all-in. This made Buzgon visibly upset, even prompting him to say, “This sucks so much,” during his five minute decision-making period. He finally called, flipping over Ac-Th for a full house. Shocked, Rousso mucked, giving the pot to Buzgon. That took Buzgon up to 205,000, while Rousso fell to 22,000.
The rest of the players at the table seemed to be quite surprised that Buzgon took so long to make the call with such a strong hand. In all, the hand took a whopping 17 minutes to complete. One had to imagine that because Rousso was so aggressive throughout the hand, including three-betting pre-flop, check-raising on the turn, and putting him all-in on the river, Buzgon felt that A-A or Q-Q were distinct possibilities for her hole cards. Those hands would, of course, have given her a better full house than Buzgon. Two different straight flushes were also possible and one of them in particular (made with Kc-Jc) would not have been far-fetched at all.
Day 3 will begin at noon Vegas time on Monday. As previously mentioned, once the day is over, we will know the official field size, prize pool, and payout structure.
WPT World Championship – End of Day 2 Chip Leaders
1. Michael Mizrachi – 428,200
2. Rinat Bogdanov – 381,000
3. Guillaume Darcourt – 356,600
4. David Steicke – 345,500
5. Isaac Haxton – 313,500
6. Tony Ruberto – 309,100
7. Steve O’Dwyer – 301,900
8. Ubaid Habib – 288,100
9. Matt Juttelstad – 274,000
10. John Hennigan – 265,500
