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After four flights of Day 1 and a day off, a total of 1,251 player survivors from Day 1A and Day 1B returned to the Amazon Room at the Rio for the second day of action. While it was understood that no one would reach the money on Day 2A, it was no less important to chip up and make it through to Day 3.

The day got underway with a few words from the widow of Stu Ungar. Madeline discussed addictions and suicide – the reasons that Mr. Ungar is not with us today – and the purpose of the Stu Ungar Foundation to raise funds and awareness of those problems. November of 2008 will be the ten year anniversary of his death, and the WSOP wanted to bring attention and recognition to Ungar and the non-profit organization built in his name.

With the “shuffle up and deal” plea, players got down to business. Those with short stacks moved all-in quickly to double up or do something else with their day, likely tell everyone their bad beat stories. The mood was a serious one throughout the tournament area, and the players fell from the field quickly.

In the end, the number of players had dropped proportionally, as is typical for the second day of such a massive event. Only 466 were able to maneuver their stacks through Day 2A for the chance to play on the third day of the 2008 WSOP main event.

There was one name that repeatedly came up throughout the day and seemed unstoppable – Brian Schaedlich. By the time play stopped at the end of the day’s fifth level, his stacks were checked and double-checked because the numbers didn’t seem right. He was so far ahead of the rest of the pack with 801,000 that the second person on the leader board seemed like a short stack with 397,000. But whatever Schaedlich was doing, it worked, and he would move comfortably into Day 3.

The top ten chip counts of the 466 players graduating from Day 2A were as follows:

Brian Schaedlich 801,000
Hunter Frey 397,000
Jeremiah Smith 386,000
Patrick Fortin 355,900
Kellen Hunter 354,100
Brandon Adams 353,600
David Rheem 353,000
Ronald Adams 333,550
Farhad Sinae 328,500
Eric Crain 315,000

Once the massive field on Day 2B finishes play for the day, those surviving players will join the ones with a day off today for the third day of the main event. Stay tuned for details!