Registration remained open through the first level of play on Friday in the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) Foxwoods World Poker Finals. When the cash boxes closed for business, 242 players had registered for the $10,000 buy-in tournament, a drop of 31% from the 353 that entered last year.
In 2009, Cornel Andrew Cimpan took home $910,000 for besting the field at Foxwoods. This year, the winner will pocket $548,000, the smallest first place prize given out since the Hollywood Poker Open dished out $391,000 to its winner in March. Carlos Mortensen became the WPT’s all-time money leader in that event after besting Mike Mustafa heads-up.
Kyle Bowker, who goes by the handle “kwob20” online, leads the way after Day 2 with a stack of 260,100, or 162 big blinds. He’s barely edging out poker pro Josh Arieh, who will come armed to Day 3 this afternoon with a stack of 258,200, or 161 big blinds. Sixty-nine players remain in the hunt for the coveted WPT bracelet and a seat in the end-of-season Championship event at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
Mortensen was a late casualty of the World Poker Finals last night, as his club flush draw failed to materialize on the turn or river when he was all-in. Josh Bergman was his executioner and scooped the pot with pocket kings. Also departing was former WPT champ McLean Karr, who moved all-in with K-Q on a board of J-8-6-J for complete air. Another player called with pocket nines, which held up when the river was a 10.
Full Tilt Poker pro Gavin Smith delivered back-to-back eliminations of Brian Lemke and Nick Schulman. The former is a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner, while the latter was recently featured on MTV’s documentary series “World of Jenks.” Smith flopped a set of threes to send Lemke to the rails, while Schulman was sent home in a hand where both pros flopped top pair, but Smith had Schulman out-kicked.
Other pros sent packing on Friday included Victor Ramdin, Matt “All In At 420” Stout, and Cimpan. The defending champ Tweeted his exit for the world to read: “Out of Foxwoods. Had a chance to double for the 3rd time my AQ vs. QQ on a 10 X X K board with me having nut flush draw and over and a gutshot.” Needless to say, none of Cimpan’s draws hit and he was relegated to the rail.
Here’s how the top 10 in chips look after two days of play in the WPT Foxwoods World Poker Finals:
1. Kyle “kwob20” Bowker – 260,100
2. Josh Arieh – 258,200
3. Bryon Springer – 247,300
4. Gavin Smith – 245,800
5. Todd Freeman – 229,100
6. Ben Klier – 228,500
7. Besnik Ziba – 188,400
8. Ronald Lee – 187,100
9. Christopher Bonita – 184,400
10. Eli Berg – 177,200
The 69 players remain comprise a pro-heavy field. The survivors include:
Hoyt Corkins – 155,400
Mohsin “chicagocards1” Charania – 148,200
Barry Greenstein – 109,900
“Miami” John Cernuto – 106,300
Brock “t soprano” Parker – 105,000
Jason Mercier – 99,500
Chad Brown – 88,800
Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little – 81,100
Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler – 60,800
Erik Seidel – 50,500
Todd Terry – 37,000
When the action paused for the day, the blinds where in Level 11, where the price of poker is 800-1,600 with an ante of 200. The action resumes today at Noon ET. Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest WPT headlines.
