PokerWorks first reported the risk of managing the field of Day 2A. Harrah's officials had a few challenges in front of them. "We want the structure to yield a Final Table of eight to twelve hours of play," said an official. "We are planning to play five levels today, and we anticipate getting ahead far enough in play to hopefully have a day off for the players."
The field of approximately 1,300 players is larger than the starting 1,033
from Tuesday, but the dynamics should be similar. The risk of Day 2B is that the field could understand their collective incentive to play a tighter game, bringing a much greater percentage of players along for the ride for Day 3. Simply knowing you have to make it to midnight will definitely affect play.
Joe Hachem led the parade of top pros who turned into pumpkins before the clock had tolled twelve times. Others
included Bill Chen, Hoyt Corkins, Alan Smurfit, Captain Tom Franklin, Mark Seif, Evelyn Ng, Charlie Ng, Raymond Davis, Jeff Madsen, Patrik Antonius, James Van Alstyne, CK Hua, Joe Sebok, and Tom McEvoy. Final Tablists Doug Kim busted out as did David Einhorn, who gave all his winnings to charity last year.
Some like David Pham and Sabyl Cohen had big stacks early only to lose them in the evening. Others were emotional about how their evenings ended. Joe Tehan shoved his chips into the pile of chips of the player who busted him, his K-7 for trip kings no match for his opponent's A-K.
Chip leads came and went. More experienced players realize that Day 2 chipleads in a marathon like the Main Event don't bring you much. You receive no plaque or other memento, but hopefully you just have a very healthy stack heading into Day 3. Tinten Olivier (pictured above) started with 270k and finished around 200k, not the day he was looking for as the chipleader but in great shape.
Steve Austin had the chiplead mantle in Level 9 with 340k, but ended the day at 105k. Jeff "mrrain" Banghart (pictured above) was the first player to penetrate the 500k mark, and he ended second in chips (551k) behind Jon Moonves with 570k.
There are many top names solidly into Day 3. Kenny Tran has used his 5th place finish in the $50k HORSE event to have a great Main Event so far, fourth in chips at 495k. Other top players include John Duthie (381k), Kirk Morrison (280k), 1996 Main Event Champion Huck Seed (280k), Jared Hamby (260k), Cliff Josephy (227k), and Minh Ly (212k).
Notable players below 200k include Dapo Fadeyi, Robert Mizrachi, Billy Baxter, Julian Gardner, Jason Lester, Scotty Nguyen, Nam Le, Richard Lee, and Matt Matros.
The average chipcount is 161.5k among the remaining 350 players. Complete results will be updated in the morning, and we'll see Wednesday evening how many players join the 350 from today. With 621 players cashing, it is likely that play will tighten up Wednesday.