An extra day has been called for Event #29 as James Calvo and Gaurav Raina remain the last two players standing after 141 hands of the final table. Calvo and Raina both chase their first WSOP bracelet along with the $456,822 first-place prize and an eternal legacy of membership in the World Series of Poker champions club.
While Calvo and Raina are both already set to pick up their career-best prizes with $282,276 locked, there's still a $175,000 pay jump and the fame to fight for.
Calvo is in better shape with 9,600,000 in chips, good for 80 big blinds. Raina is coming back with 4,000,000 (33 big blinds). Play resumes Sunday 1 p.m. local time with 30 minutes left in Level 31: 60,000/120,000 and an ante of 15,000.
Yesterday's heads-up action lasted just over 70 hands. Calvo entered the final duel with nearly a three-to-one chip lead but Raina doubled in the second hand to earn a slight lead. So far, the most dramatic part of the heads up has emerged in hands #115 and #116 of the final table which saw the chips flying from side to side. The first one went Calvo's way as he triple-barrelled queens on a jack-high board, scoring a huge double against Raina's ace-jack.
Calvo wasted no time and tried to finish Raina off in the following hand when they got it in preflop in a fair race. Calvo held pocket sevens and Raina was hoping with ace-queen. Calvo remained ahead through the flop and turn, but a queen on the river came to Raina's rescue as he narrowed Calvo's lead to two-to-one. The next 25 hands didn't bring any significant change and the top two finishers then bagged their chips, pausing their battle until Sunday.
Raina has racked up nearly five times as much as Calvo in live tournament cashes but this will be his first reported top-two finish. Calvo had already played a tournament heads up, albeit only in small events in Las Vegas.
Neither of the players had experienced heads-up play on such level as the World Series of Poker until yesterday and their epic battle has been stretched to two days. There's only one obstacle on the way to glory as Calvo and Raina face off again Sunday at 1 p.m. PDT. Follow PokerNews hand-by-hand coverage to see the full details of the action as Event #29 crowns its champion today afternoon.