Ayras Takes Day 2 Chip Lead; Sekularac, Strelitz, Chen, and Ho Also Through
After ten full levels of play, 27 players have made it through Day 2 of Event #11: $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em out of 400 entries in total. They will all return to the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino for Day 3 on Wednesday, June 5 to play down to the final six players. Each player is guaranteed at least $11,969 but they will all have their sights set on the first-place prize of $442,385 and the coveted gold WSOP bracelet.
Taking the overnight chip lead is Pauli Ayras with around 1,000,000 in chips. Ayras wasn’t sure exactly how much he had at the end of the night and decided to put “around 1 million” on his bag for Day 3. The Finn was a late entry today and made the most of it. Almost a quarter of his chips came from Anatoly Filatov when he called Filatov’s four-bet shove with pocket kings and flopped a set against his ace-jack. Ayras’ first ever WSOP cash could be a big one if he stays in the lead for the next two days.
Second in the chip counts is a more familiar name and face to the WSOP as Ognjen Sekularac has already collected 20 cashes worth over $500,000 with his deepest run a second-place finish in the $1,000 Turbo in 2017. Sekularac eliminated Chander Jain and Richard Tuhrim, who finished in eighth place in 2018, in the latter stages of the tournament to take him to upper echelons of the chip counts.
Closing out the podium is Daniel Strelitz with 694,000, only narrowly pipping Pete Chen by 3,000 in chips. Strelitz is no stranger to the WSOP scene with 38 cashes totaling over $1,000,000 already but with no bracelets of rings to his name yet, he will be looking to claim his first one. This is also the case for Chen, but for him, there’s, even more, to play for as he will be trying to win the first bracelet for his home country, Taiwan.
Maria Ho and Maria Mcalpin have both bagged more than 50 big blinds for Day 3 and either of them could become the first female bracelet winners of 2019 in an open event. Other bracelet winners still in the running are Giuseppe Pantaleo, Anthony Zinno, Jeremy Ausmus, and Niall Farrell. Shannon Shorr and Ian Steinman have both come very close to winning a bracelet finishing in second place when heads-up and will be aiming to do better this time.
Not everyone was lucky enough to win their final all-ins but did manage to cash. Ben Heath won’t be winning two bracelets in a week as he said he was done in the Rio for this week but he did manage to burst the bubble when he eliminated Jai Singh with pocket queens while Singh held ace-jack. Christopher Frank, Gaurav Raina, and Andrew Lichtenberger won’t be winning their second bracelets in this event and Adrian Mateos will need to try and win his fourth in another event as he finished in 57th place for $7,476.
Play will resume at 2 p.m. local time in the gold section of the Amazon Room with Level 19 which features a small blind of 6,000, big blind of 12,000, and a big blind ante of 12,000. A 15-minute break will take place after every two levels with a 60-minute dinner break after the sixth level of play. Play will continue until there are six players left with the final day being streamed on CBS All Access and PokerGO with the hole cards.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be on hand to bring you all the all-ins and calls right from the tournament floor so keep refreshing the browser from 2 p.m. onwards on June 5th.
Day 3 Seat Draw
| Table | Seat | Player | Country | Chip Counts | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 404 | 1 | Randall Emmett | United States | 164,000 | 14 |
| 404 | 2 | Pete Chen | Taiwan | 691,000 | 58 |
| 404 | 3 | Marton Czuczor | Hungary | 372,000 | 31 |
| 404 | 4 | Michael O'Grady | Australia | 316,000 | 26 |
| 404 | 5 | Anthony Alberto | United States | 359,000 | 30 |
| 404 | 6 | Ian Steinman | United States | 212,000 | 18 |
| 404 | 7 | Keith Ferrera | United States | 72,000 | 6 |
| 404 | 8 | Maria Mcalpin | United States | 648,000 | 54 |
| 404 | 9 | Taylor Hart | United States | 325,000 | 27 |
| 408 | 1 | Brett Bader | United States | 355,000 | 30 |
| 408 | 2 | Andreas Kniep | Germany | 456,000 | 38 |
| 408 | 3 | Shannon Shorr | United States | 553,000 | 46 |
| 408 | 4 | Niall Farrell | United Kingdom | 162,000 | 14 |
| 408 | 5 | Daniel Strelitz | United States | 694,000 | 58 |
| 408 | 6 | Arsenii Karmatckii | Russia | 459,000 | 38 |
| 408 | 7 | Giuseppe Pantaleo | Germany | 597,000 | 50 |
| 408 | 8 | Jeremy Ausmus | United States | 208,000 | 17 |
| 408 | 9 | Ali Imsirovic | United States | 334,000 | 28 |
| 409 | 1 | Simon Deadman | United Kingdom | 540,000 | 45 |
| 409 | 2 | Anthony Zinno | United States | 249,000 | 21 |
| 409 | 3 | Emile Schiff | Jamaica | 303,000 | 25 |
| 409 | 4 | Mario Hofler | United States | 154,000 | 13 |
| 409 | 5 | Ognjen Sekularac | Serbia | 909,000 | 76 |
| 409 | 6 | Maria Ho | United States | 632,000 | 53 |
| 409 | 7 | Krasimir Yankov | Bulgaria | 597,000 | 50 |
| 409 | 8 | Pauli Ayras | Finland | 1,000,000 | 83 |
| 409 | 9 | Daniel Buzgon | United States | 594,000 | 50 |