Anderson Leads The Final 55
It was a short day of poker here in the orange section of the Amazon room as the entrants in Event #43: $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball participated in their first eight levels of play. A total of 87 players hit the felt for this event, making it the smallest field so far (and probably overall) at this year's WSOP. That being said, the field was stacked to the brim with the biggest names poker has to offer. At the end of the night, it was Calvin Anderson who bagged up 134,700 for the biggest stack among the final 55. Paul Volpe finished hot on Anderson's heels and bagged up 127,000 for second in chips.
With poker's elite showing up for this prestigious $10,000 buy-in event, it's no shock that some of the names to fall early in the day were those of very notable and successful players. Jason Mercier was one of the first to go and others like Darren Elias, Brandon Cantu, Mike Gorodinsky, George Danzer, Galen Hall, Josh Brikis, Barry Greenstein, Todd Brunson, Mike Matusow, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, and Brian Rast all followed suit. Phil Hellmuth, who finished runner-up in this event in 2011, also saw a short day of play. Hellmuth had a confrontation with Volpe that seemed to put him on a downward spiral which ended in him busting a short while after. Also to find an early exit was 2011 champion and 2012 sixth-place finisher John Juanda, who fell at the hands of Max Pescatori late in the day.
While those players found themselves with nothing but felt to look down at, others were able to turn their starting stack into more chips to carry on for Day 2. Tom Schneider (115,200), Layne Flack (102,200), Naoya Kihara (88,200), Matthew Ashton (82,000, Max Pescatori (66,000), 2010 champion David "Bakes Baker (55,500), Phil Laak (53,900), Bernard Lee (50,100), Phil Ivey (43,100), Erik Seidel (35,500), Billy Baxter (26,900), and Johnny Chan (16,100) are a small sample of those coming back for the second day of play.
Also returning for Day 2 is reigning champion Nick Schulman. Schulman owns two WSOP bracelets and both of them are courtesy of this event. Schulman won his first bracelet in 2009 and then was able to repeat his victory in 2012. It seemed that Schulman would return as one of the shorter stacks but he was able to score a knockout at the end of the night to pad his stack for Day 2 play. He will return with 45,800 in chips.
Play will resume at 2:00 PM on Monday right here in the Amazon room. Be sure to tune into PokerNews tomorrow as continue the quest to crown a champion in the only No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball event of the 2013 WSOP!