Day 2A Roundup

Day 2A went a lot faster than anticipated, with players hurling their chips about with abandon and inevitably a lot of them finding themselves out of the tournament. Play was actually suspended 1 and a half hours early lest so many players go out the remainder were in probably money spots with the rest of the field still to play their Day 2 today. David Williams, Mike Caro, John Juanda , Berry Johnston, Barry Greenstein, Mike Sexton and Men Nguyen all gone, together with young guns Eric Froelich and Jeff Madsen. Phil Ivey was down to 10,000 at one stage but doubled up at the end to finish with 23,400. Yuriy Kozinskiy finished chip leader on 443,300, Jon Lave the only other finisher above 400,000.

Amonst the Europeans Garry Bush never found the cards he needed and was out midway through the day, Dave Ulliot found himself short stacked and pushed in a few times looking to double up. When he did get called he found himself with 9s against aces and didn’t make his set. Padraig Parkinson got his money in in a better situation with 5s against AQ but the end result was the same, a trip to the rail to join Noah Boeken and Mickey Wernick. Irishman Paul McCaffrey who brought a very decent stack in at the start of the day ended up halving it but didn’t lose his cool and finished with 34,600. Julian Gardner was up with the leaders most of the day but ended up without a chip to his name. Scandinavian Per Erik Loeff looked to be top European finisher with 177,500 but that wasn’t even enough for him to be in the top 30. Gary Jones had a good day too on 172,800, other European counts as follows, others still in include: 

Patrick Bueno 98,100
Tony Bloom 82,500
Carlos Mortensen 77,600
Steve Davis 58,400

The food situation has improved since last year with sandwiches brought to the media room and a couple of food and drink tents set up close to the tournament area for players and spectators. Trying to get a proper meal at the Rio during the dinner break is still nigh on impossible without a reservation. If you’ve been stuck queuing for 20 minutes to find out the kitchen can’t take any more orders anyway, spare a thought however for President James Garfield who, in hospital after being shot, was given beef bouillon, egg yolks, milk, whiskey and drops of opium. Doesn’t sound too bad you might think, except that on his doctors’ insistence he received these rectally! Makes you grateful for what you can get here even if there is a bit of a wait for it.

Today sees champions Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem play again, alongside Barny and a host of other top players, all trying to build their stacks up as high as possible as we get to within touching distance of the money.