Welcome to Day 2 of Event 11: $5,000 No Limit Hold’em! Today, 137 remaining players return to the tables to battle amidst some of the biggest names in the game. Among those big names is Dan Smith, who had an excellent Day 1 that propelled him to his current position of chip leader with 321,100.
A total of 343 players entered on Day 1, a number that is likely to grow, as registration will remain open until the completion of level 12 today.
Day 2 promises to provide a scintillating day of poker to the Amazon Room with Darryll Fish (254,400), Faraz Jaka (224,600), Andreas Eiler (171,200), Randall Emmett (119,600) and Ali Imsirovic, (105,800) being just a few of the established players aiming to advance deeper into the tournament.
The action begins at 2 p.m. at level 9 with blinds at 600/1,200 and an ante of 1,200. Play will consist of ten 60-minute levels with a 15-minute break after every two levels and an hour-long dinner break after level 14.
As always, PokerNews will be there to catch every minute of the action and provide timely updates to everyone following this exciting event.
Samuel Cosby raised to 4,000 from the cutoff and Kyriakos Papadopoulos shoved on the button for 37,800. Jason Tucker called in the big blind and Cosby got out of their way.
Kyriakos Papadopoulos:
Jason Tucker;
The board ran out for Papadopoulos to hold and double up with two pair, eights and fives.
On a board that read Maria Ho in early position checked it over to David Farah who was in middle position. Farah put in a bet of 18,000. Ho thought for a few moments and made the call.
The river was the . Ho checked again over to Farah, who wasted little time in moving all in for 44,000 which barely covered Ho's stack.
After about a minute of assessing the hand, Ho tossed in the one chip call. Farah shook his head and turned over his busted draws with the . Ho revealed for the winning one pair hand to decimate Farah's stack to a measly 1,500.
Several players at the table were impressed, repeating "wow" and complimenting Ho on the call. None more so that Farah himself however as he seemed almost jovial about the call even after busting on the subsequent hand.
"Sick call man! What can you do?" he said as he walked away.
The board read with around 75,000 in the middle already.
Adrian Mateos had checked in the big blind and Richard Tuhrim shoved from early position with the bigger stack. Mateos snap-called to see that his for the flush beat the of Tuhrim who had flopped a set.
The floor has just announced the prize pool details:
There were 400 entries in total creating a prize pool of $1,860,000. The winner will walk away with $442,385 and the coveted gold WSOP bracelet. Sixty players will be in the money for at least $7,476.
Dan Smith shoved from under the gun for 33,000 and Emile Schiff did the same for 219,500 from the button. Chen Dong called in the small blind, having both of his opponents covered.
Dan Smith:
Emile Schiff:
Chen Dong:
The flop came for Schiff to flop trips immediately.
The turn was the which didn't change the situation and neither did the on the river except for the fact that Schiff improved to a full house to eliminate Smith and earn a full double-up through Dong.
Anatoly Filatov raised to 17,000 from the hijack and Pauli Ayras three-bet to 40,000 in the small blind. Filatov took some time and decided to shove for 214,000 which Ayras snap-called.
Anatoly Filatov:
Pauli Ayras:
The flop came for Ayras to flop a set and Filatov to pick up the backdoor flush draw.
The turn was the for Filatov to stay alive if a club came on the river but the on the river didn't change the situation as Filatov was sent to the rail in 34th place for $10,260.
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.