Day 2 saw day 1’s surviving 4,500 players split across days 2a and 2b and eventually whittled down to 1,900 by the end of Tuesday’s play. From here on in all remaining players will sit down at the same time until the WSOP Main Event ultimately concludes in November.
Day 2a started with 2,031 players, combining the surviving entrants from days 1a and 1c – headed up by the overall chip leader Fred Berger sitting on a very healthy 209k stack. By the end of play the landscape of the leaderboard had changed somewhat although not much had changed for Berger who ended the day much further down the able with almost exactly what he started with at 205k.
By days end the chip lead was held by Russian player Aleksandr Mozhnyakov with over 478,600, closely followed by Tuan Vo on 434,50, Guillaume Darcourt on 410,500 and Stephane Albertini completing the 400k+ club with 400,150 chips to take into Day 3.
The story of the day however featured (once again) the antics of Poker Brat, Phil Hellmuth - although not this time for either one of his famed petulant outbursts or his table-leading prowess. The talk of the day was that the already short stacked (11,800) Hellmuth was notable by his absence for the first 100 minutes of the day and was slowly being blinded out of the tournament, later tweeting that he had mistakenly thought he was playing day 2b.
So the story goes his close friend Mike Matusow demanded security enter his hotel room to alert him to the situation after which a flustered Hellmuth tore down to the Pavilion Rooms to begin his days play with under 7.000 chips remaining. After this less than ideal start Hellmuth did what he does best and worked his stack slowly but surely throughout the day, avoiding any unnecessary confrontations and ending up with a below average but a nonetheless respectable 65,000 chips.
Some of the big names to fall in day 2a include 2003 runner up Sam Farha, two time winner Johnny Chan, last years winner Jonathan Duhamel and online sensation Daniel “Jungleman12” Cates. In total 822 players from day 2a will return for day 3 tomorrow.
Day 2b
At the close of play on day 2b a starting field of 2,490 had become 1,080 with what is becoming a very familiar name at the top of the leaderboard. Strong contender for WSOP Player of the Year Ben Lamb had another stellar day ending up with a competition leading 551,600 chips, very closely followed by Kevin "BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul with 542,200. None other than Patrik Antonius also found himself well inside the days top 10 at the close of play accumulating a 361k stack with which to terrorize his opponents come day 3.
Once again we saw a big name make a big comeback with Erick Lindgren putting Phil Hellmuth’s efforts from the previous day to shame as he built his paltry 3,900 starting stack to a mightily impressive 170,300 over the course of the day.
Big names hitting the rail in day 2b include former main event winners Johnny Chan, Jamie Gold, Joe Hachem (who’s brother Tony remains in the chase with a healthy 245k) and Jonathan Duhamel alongside Barry Greenstein, Phil Galfond, Kenny Tran, Eugene Katchalov, Mike Matusow and Phil Laak (to name but a few).
Matusow was his usual humble and gracious self as he later tweeted “Goodbye 2011 wsop may u rot in hell”
That about wraps up day 2, to the 1,902 contestants coming back for day 3 – we salute you.