There were no new champions crowned yesterday at the WSOP in Las Vegas as Event 28 ($1500 HORSE) which was due to play to a finish last night was still three handed when the players decided that rather than play the bonus level available to them at the end of the scheduled days play that they would return today at 1pm local time to finish proceedings. As the bagged up their chips the chip leader was 4 time bracelet winner, David Chiu. Chiu holds a 620k advantage over the previous days chip leader Ylon Schwartz (1.92m to 1.3m) with Stephen Chidwick in third on 785k.
Play started yesterday with 18 players still in contention and it took around 4.5 hours for the official final table of 8 players to be decided, by which time we had lost big names in five time bracelet winner Allen Cunningham and online tournament legend Cliff "JohnnyBax" Josephy. As we entered the final table the big chip leader was Robby Rasmussen with 1.25m chips with Chiu and Schwartz both on 770k behind him. The next nine hours saw the table gradually play down to the final three with Chiu & Schwartz among them (joined by Stephen Chadwick with Rasmussen eventually being felted in fourth spot). By the time play wrapped up the blinds were such that the three players exchanged the lead on a very regular basis - in fact both Chiu and Schwartz at points found themselves with barely a big bet left in their stacks. In fact, David Chiu went from two big bets to chip leader in the space of two hands shortly before play was suspended for the day. Although a fairly big chip leader, Chiu will be only too aware that things can change very quickly when play resumes later today.
Event 28 ($2.5k NLHE 4 handed) reached the final 8 yesterday from the 86 returning from day 1. Big names to fall yesterday included; Gavin Smith, Lex Veldhuis, Jake Cody, Annete Obrestad and Isaac "philivey2694" Haxton, Nick Schulman and Brian "tsarrast" Rast - the demise of Rast being especially surprising as he was among the chip leaders for a good portion of the day. The current chip leader is Brendon Rubie with 1.682m chips, followed by 2008's $1500 HORSE bracelet winner James Schaaf in second with 1.126 million. The title will be decided later today.
The surprise of the day was the turn out for the $1k Seniors NLHE Event which set a record for entrants with a collosal 4,128 over 50's registering for a shot at a WSOP bracelet and the $603k first place prize! The field thinned to 462 players by the end of play with a few big names still in the running, the highest up the leader board being 2008's Main Event 3rd place finisher Dennis Phillips with Marcel Luske, Humberto Brenes and the only blind player ever to cash at the WSOP - Hal Lubarsky - still in contention. Current chip leader is Radwan Khuri with 112,600 chips.
Event 30: $1,500 2-7 Draw Lowball also got underway yesterday and we saw the return of back-to-back final tablist and current WSOP POY leader Phil Ivey, at the tables once again seeking that 9th WSOP bracelet and his second in this event in the last few years. It wasn't to be however as Ivey was one of the first casualties of the day, one of the 219 from the starting 285 who didn't make it to day 2. Other unlucky big names include; Gavin Smith, Shaun Deeb, Steve Sung, John Juanda, Barry Greenstein, Brian "$tinger 88" Hastings and Daniel "KidPoker" Negreanu. With 66 players remaining, there are still a ton of recognisable names left in contention with the top ten littered with talent lead by "The Grinder" himself, Michael Mizrachi on 86k chips closely followed by Andrew "LuckyChewy" Lichtenberger, Brandon Cantu, John Phan, Leo Margets, Scott Fishman, Galen Hall and Aaron "aejones" Jones. Plenty of talent on display there then!
Find more of the latest news and articles relating to the World Series of Poker in the 2012 WSOP-section.