The incumbents of Day 1A and Day 1B huddled together to form Day 2A of the World Series of Poker Main Event. It started with 1,624 players, it ended with 650 remaining, and this is what happened in between.
I think it was Bob Dylan who said that anyone who was not busy being born was busy dying. Well, Day 2A of the $10,000 buy-in World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event was a birth of sorts for one man, and we saw 974 players dreams die at the other end of the scale.
The 470 Day 1A survivors and the 1,154 Day 1B survivors competed for a place in Day 3 of a tournament of Sisyphean proportions. At the end of five levels only 650 remained from the maelstrom that had preceded them.
The birth I spoke about was Anand Amar who finished the day as the chip leader bagging up 603,500 chips. According to the Hendon Mob, Amar has only ever cashed once in his life, and that was for $750 at the WPT500 at the Aria in 2014. It was a performance that made his hairs on the back of his neck stand and salute. Just how far he can go is anybody’s guess.
Here is the run down of the day’s main talking points.
The action started in Level 6 and the first big name to be eliminated was Jeff Gross. He was all-in AQ v JJ of Paul Tong, and it looked promising when he flopped his queen, only for Tong to land a starring role on Broadway by the time fifth street had come and gone.
Talal Shakerchi eliminated Barry Shulman. The pair got it in on Ts9d7s. Shakerchi held pocket eights for the pair and open ender, and Shulman held 98hh for a better pair an open ender. It wasn’t looking good for the Brit until the case eight rolled out of the deck on fourth street to send Shulman to the rail.
Daniel Colman eliminated Chris Moneymaker in a three-way all-in. Moneymaker held AK, Colman held QQ, and the third player in the hand held AJ. The ladies held, and one of the most famous winners of the Main Event was out.
The level ended with the elimination of Gary Benson. The Australian Poker Hall of Famer flopped top pair-top kicker on AJ8hhh, only for his opponent Chris Johnson to be holding a set of jacks.
WSOP bracelet winner Charles Sylvestre was leading at the break with 236,100 chips.
The first-ever online bracelet winner, Anthony Spinella, was eliminated in an extraordinary hand in Level 7. It was a three-way all-in with Spinella holding pocket queens, Alyssa Stachowski holding AT, and Steve Zolotow holding AK.
The flop of AT4 gave Stachowski the lead with two pair, the Ax on the turn gave her a boat, and then a Tx on the river meant she had to split the pot with Zolotow after they both rivered aces full of tens. Spinella was halfway home by this point in proceedings.
Natasha Barbour was eliminated by Sam Bernstein AJ<KK, David Sands eliminated Jeremy Ausmus AQ>KQ on a queen high flop, and Max Pescatori ended the tournament hopes of the dangerous Mark Radoja.
At the break Charles Sylvestre maintained his lead with 266k.
The eighth level saw Candace Collins eliminated at the hands of Waldir Guerra. The latter putting Collins all-in on a low flop. She nearly folded after convincing herself that Guerra had pocket aces, she didn’t, and he did show pocket aces to ensure her pocket kings went into the muck.
Andy Black was eliminated by Rafi Elharar after his flush failed to hit the spot against top pair, Ted Lawson ran eights into the tens of Kevin Malis to see his Main Event plans go up in smoke and Jennifer Tilly also bailed out after her A7o failed to beat AQo.
Joe Lu led at the break with 418,300 chips.
The penultimate level of the day saw Dutch Boyd eliminated AQKQ, Greg Raymer eliminated Erick Lindgren when his flopped set of sixes outlasted the flush draw of the financially troubled star, and Bruno Politano will not be making back-to-back final tables after losing out to Fred Pynn 99>QQ.
Anand Amar took the lead into the final level of play with 497,000 chips.
Several big names were ousted in the final level of play. Vivek Rajkumar eliminated Amit Makhija AT>QQ, when he flopped two more aces, Sergio Castelluccio eliminated Brandon Stevens QQ v JTcc on J63 flop, James Woods Main Event came to a tragic end when Dash Dhawan cracked his aces with pocket queens, Jason Mercier and Jesse Sylvia busted, Brian Rast will not be adding a further $7.6m to the $7.5m he won several days ago after Garrett Jones got lucky to catch trips when behind during an all-in flop bet, and Phil Galfond’s WSOP ended when he ran AQ into AK.
Top 10 Chip Counts
1st. Anand Amar – 603,500
2nd. Calvin Lee – 500,700
3rd. Luther Tran – 479,700
4th. Chaz Chattha – 423,300
5th. Alan Mastic – 400,000
6th. Sotirios Koutoupas – 393,000
7th. Joe Lu – 387,400
8th. William Molson – 370,300
9th. Daniel Fuhs – 368,800
10th. Brian Hastings – 367,300
Other notables with big stacks include Pierre Neuville (357,600), Jake Cody (340,100) and Fedor Holz (303,900).
