Michael Mizrachi Ready to Challenge for Third PPC Title After Bagging Big
Michael Mizrachi built his poker legend largely on the back of two victories in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship. That record was tied last year when Brian Rast claimed his second title, but could "The Grinder" one up Rast again and claim an unprecedented third Chip Reese Trophy?
It's still far too early to speculate too heavily on such a possibility, but Mizrachi has at least gotten the ball rolling in that direction after a strong second day here at the 2017 PPC. Mizrachi finished the day with 1,087,000, leaving him in third place out of 44 remaining players.
The only players finishing above Mizrachi were Aaron Katz (1,642,000) and Talal Shakerchi (1,480,500).
The Grinder experienced an early slide, losing more than half of the chips he came in with. He sat with a below-average stack for much of the day, but the last couple of levels were good to him, as he utilized his unpredictable no-limit style to chip up in some of the big-bet rounds.
In addition to those big stacks already listed, some players living to see Day 3 included another former champ, Matthew Ashton, as well as Shaun Deeb, Jason Mercier, Mike Matusow, Phil Galfond, Daniel Negreanu and Mike Sexton.
Negreanu put together a wild charge during the final two levels of the night after being down to about 40,000. Much to the delight of a crowd of railbirds cheering him on, the Canadian superstar doubled up and then tripled up in pot-limit Omaha.
That still only left him with 170,000, about 10 big bets, but he turned that into 500,000 in under an hour after doubling up with a set in no-limit hold'em against Harry Madoff's overpair. Negreanu finished with 678,000.
Madoff was among those failing to see bagging time. Others eliminated on Day 2 included Dzmitry Urbanovich, Johnny Chan, Phil Hellmuth, Mike Gorodinsky, Rast and Gus Hansen.
The remaining players return at 2 p.m. Tuesday for Day 3 with limits of 12,000/24,000 on limit games and blinds of 3,000/6,000 in big-bet games. Tune in to PokerNews for further coverage at that time.
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for a Broadway straight. Sexton showed 
for trip eights, which was second best, and had to surrender the pot to Mercier.
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for kings up, which was enough to beat both of his opponents.
for all his remaining chips. Shakerchi called and Matthew Ashton raised it up with a queen. Shakerchi called but folded on fourth when Ashton paired his queen.
- fold
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river improved his hand into a full house, securing him a large double up. 
river were all but helpful for Smith who took off the sunglasses and returned them to Couden.
for a flopped full house.
on the board. Isaac Haxton in the big blind and Harry Madoff in the cutoff had built a side pot of about 75,000, and the 
on the turn gave Katz an inside straight draw, and an 
on the river completed it. "The Poker Brat" calmly said his goodbyes and walked out of the tournament area.
