With Day 2 of the "DBFDC" in the books the day ended with current (and two time) WSOP $50k Players Championship Winner Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi as chip leader, holding on to 272.6k chips. Mizrachi is enjoying a stellar year with 4 WSOP final tables (including the $1.4m first prize in the $50k) as well as a third place in WPT World Champs this May for $424k. With the big turnout at this event this year the winner can look forward to a seven figure paycheck - this would be a fine way for Mizrachi to cap an excellent 2012.
The day started with 269 of the original 374 registrations still in play and by the end of the registration period at the end of level 8 we had a total of 503 entires, beating last years turnout by 90 registrations. Of course it helps that players were allowed unlimited rebuys for the first eight levels - a procedure that has been dubbed somewhat unfair on those players who either satellited their way in or could only afford one "bullet". It's easy to see their point when seasoned pro's with big bankrolls are allowed to relentlessly fire chips at them, safe in the knowledge they can rebuy again and again. Nevertheless, with 503 entries and the registration period now up, for those who did just survive with their original buy in then the prize pool awaiting them has been fattened considerably. The rebuy option also saw the return of several "busted" players from yesterday's play including Carlos Mortensen, Yegeniy Timoshenko and Taylor Von Kreigenbergh.
One player who helped to boost the prize pool and instantly lived to regret it was Dan Fleyshman, who made a last minute decision to rebuy just as registration closed only to pick up KK first hand before being beaten by not one but two players and find himself instantly on the rail again!
Kenna James woke up with AA and Freddy Deeb 99 - all three got their money in only for Deeb to flop a set and James take the side pot!
Faring somewhat better yesterday and ended the day among the top ten chip leaders were Chino Rheem (209k) and Vanessa Selbst (202k) with the likes of Phil "MrSweets28" Galfond (who held the chip lead around mid afternoon with c.200k chips before falling a little to c.180k at the end of the day), Noah Schwartz, Gavin Smith, Jason Somerville and Brian "tsarrast" Rast all among the contenders at this stage.
It was a terrible day at the tables for Europe's leading tournament prize money winner Sam "tr1cky7" Trickett who couldn't keep up his awesome run in 2012 here as he lost several $10k bullets on his way to bustoville where he was joined by a frustrated Daniel "KidPoker" Negreanu - with Negreanu spending $50k in buy-ins and still bowing out before the end of Day 2.
We also saw the demise of plenty of other big names on Day 2 with Xuan Liu, Ashton "theASHMAN103" Griffin, Brock Parker, Tommy Vedes, Marvin Rettenmeir and Cliff "JohnnyBax" Josephy and defending champ James Dempsey were among those who crashed and burned along the way.
Here are the standings as the event proceeds to Day 3;
Top 10 Chip Counts - End of Day 2
Michael Mizrachi 272.6k
Frank Rusnak 255.9k
Arthur Morris 242k
Warwick Mirzikinian 232.2k
Ravi Raghavan 211.3k
Chino Rheem 209k
Joseph Elpayaa 207k
Vanessa Selbst 202k
Alex Phahurat 198.6k
David Belaich 196.6k
Play resumes this afternoon and with 176 players remaining should reach the bubble (54 players will be paid) by the end of the day. The average chip count is currently 85.7k with level 11 starting today with blinds at 600/1200 with a 200 ante.