Jonathan Cohen Leads Event #53 Where Only 25 Players Remain
Day 2 of Event #53, the $1,500 No Limit Hold’em tournament, started with 320 players, but by the time the curtain came down on the day’s play after 10 60-minute levels only 25 of them remained.
The bubble burst during the first level of play thanks to 297 of the 320 players finishing in the money. Once the bubble had burst, the eliminations came in thick and fast all the way up to play finishing for the day. Among those receiving prize money included Paul Volpe (283rd), Faraz Jaka (279th), Kevin Iacofano (265th), Matt Waxman (246th), Chris Moorman (196th), Christophe De Meulder (188th), Ivan Demidov (149th), Barry Greenstein (128th), Harrison Gimbel (79th), Brett Hanks (38th) and Matthias de Meulder (31st).
Each of the surviving players will return to their seats in the Blue section of the Amazon Room safe in the knowledge they have locked up a payday of at least $19,046. However, one of them will be leaving the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino with the massive $665,397 first place prize and the coveted WSOP bracelet.
The man who is in pole position going into the third and final day is Canadian Jonathan Cohen, who bagged up an impressive 1,378,000 chips at the close of play – the only player to finish with a seven-figure stack.
Although Cohen has the largest stack, his victory is far from a forgone conclusion because there are a number of very talented players in the chasing pack. Established pros such as Mike Watson (707,000), David Vamplew (697,000), Tyron Krost (596,000) and Humberto Brenes (286,000) are joined by the big stacks Derek Dempsey (920,000), Sebastian Pauli (897,000) and Sean Wallace (844,000) while two female players in the shape of Kitty Kuo (308,000) and Loni Harwood (301,000) are sure to have a say in where the bracelet eventual goes to.
Play, and our live coverage, resumes at 1 p.m on Monday and will continue until one man (or woman) has won each of the 12,672,000 chips that are in play. Who will be Event #53’s champion? Tune into the PokerNews Live Reporting pages on Monday afternoon to find out.