Day 2a/2b of this year’s World Series of Poker Main Event is in the books and a total of 842 players remain from the 2,044 that began the day. The chances of the first ever WSOP Main Event female champion have improved significantly with Gaelle Baumann sitting out front with 505,800. Vanessa Selbst is lurking menacingly on a stack of 350,400 and comes into the event having already won some gold at this year’s WSOP.
Other notable players there or thereabouts at the end of day 2a/2b are Daniel Negreanu on 277,200 chips and a whole bevy of former Main Event champions. This includes last year’s winner Pius Heinz as well as Peter Eastgate, Robert Varkonyi, Dan Harrington and Jerry Yang. They’ll be joined by Shaun Deeb, Liv Boeree, David ODB Baker, Chris Tryba and Kenny Nguyen on day 3.
The celebrity contingent were out in full force with professional hockey’s Roberto Luongo and actor Kevin Pollak making it through with respective chip counts of 51,900 and 142,400.
There was bad news for CalvinAyre.com reporter and Bodog pro Tatjana Pasalic who met her maker on day 2. She busted out around 10 p.m. last night and Tweeted: “Jammed KQoff, no good vs AQ. GG @WSOP – thank you so much, @Bodog!” How she must have wished that she could have had her clone come along and play too.
Day 2c will see 2,300 players fight it out to grab a place on day 3, which begins on Thursday afternoon.
Away from the felt, the WSOP and Electronic Arts (EA) are teaming up on a new social gaming app. The free offering, entitled World Series of Poker by EA, gives players a chance to partake in Texas Hold’em and Omaha with bracelets and entrance to VIP rooms to be won. Seth Palansky, WSOP spokesperson, was clear why it was all happening, commenting: “This is about brand-building, letting people play the game of poker easily and introducing the game to new potential poker players.”
Find more on WSOP and CalvinAyre.com’s Poker month coverage.
