Rybin, Watson Lead International Field to End Day 2
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As the exciting first Day 1 flight of the Main Event played out down the hall here at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, the action was similarly intense in the Pavilion Room for Day 2 of Event #61: $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha. From a starting field of 386 there were 168 players back in action to start today's play, and after 10 more levels of PLO just 32 remain with Alexey Rybin of Russia leading all with a stack of 977,000.
Rybin grabbed the lead early on Day 2 and kept it for most of the afternoon and evening, only losing it briefly to Mike Watson of Canada near night's end before claiming it back. Watson ended the day with 773,000 in second position, with Johannes Strassman (Germany), Nadar Kakhmazov (Russia), and Nicolas Faure (France) not far behind.
The American Daniel Alaei and Canadian Jonathan Duhamel also will be returning to big stacks tomorrow, as will the Ukraine's Oleksii Kovalchuk who is going for his third bracelet in three years. Alex Kravchenko, Tom Marchese, Nacho Barbero, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Stephen Chidwick, Tony Cousineau, Jared Bleznick, and Joseph Cheong will also be back to help round out a star-studded field of remaining players.
The afternoon and early evening saw the field race down to the money bubble with start-of-day-2 chip leader Matt O'Donnell and NBA star Paul Pierce among those falling prior to dinner and not too far from the cash. Once just 46 remained, super short stack Jamie Pickering helped add an extra half-hour to the day by nursing his last chips for an extra orbit's worth of hand-for-hand play only to stone bubble the event.
From there Peter Jetten (44th), Scott Seiver (42nd), and Marcel Luske (41st) were among the min-cashers, with Matt Giannetti being the last elimination of the night in 33rd place.
As suggested above, the remaining field is truly indicative of poker's global reach, with players from Russia, Canada, Germany, France, Ukraine, Argentina, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Latvia, the United Kingdom, and the United States still remaining.
Play resumes tomorrow at 2 p.m. — that's Pacific time for all of those following from around the world. Come back then to follow all of the action as we discover who among these 32 will be winning the last preliminary bracelet of the 2013 WSOP.