For those who’ve been following the traditionally star-studded World Poker Tour all season long, your payoff is finally here with the Season 6 WPT World Championships. And what a payoff it has been so far!
In all, 545 players paid the hefty $25,000 entry fee (maybe not so hefty for some) to play at The Bellagio in Las Vegas this week. And much of the field was made up of the top pros in the world. Some people are even saying that this might be the toughest field ever at the World Championships!
Pretty much all of the big names such as Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth Jr., Antonio Esfandiari, Daniel Negreanu, Chris Ferguson and Gus Hansen were in attendance and there was a host of other top pro players gracing The Bellagio as well.
What was interesting about so many of the stars showing up was that the lawsuit filed by some of them against the WPT recently ended which could’ve sparked some bad blood. However, the only major players that didn’t show up were Annie Duke, Greg Raymer, and Phil Gordon.
But getting back to the actual action, only 123 players were trimmed from the starting number of 545 on the first day. This was mainly due to the giant beginning stacks of $50,000 that were given to players in the tourney. Some of the notables eliminated on day 1 included David Williams, Jonathan Little, Beth Shak, and Scott Clements. Jeff King was the surprise chip leader going into day 2.
421 other players would be moving along with King into the second day as a fifth of the field was eliminated at the poker pro dominated tables.
Of the pros that failed to dominate tables at the World Championships, Phil Hellmuth Jr., Joe Hachem, Paul Wasicka, Freddy Deeb, and Chris Ferguson were among them. In all, over half the field was cut as 233 players went down in the second round.
Robert Mizrachi bolted out to a large lead with 523,200 chips and is 116,500 ahead of his closest challenger Jayde Tran (406,700). Bryan Devonshire (4th place) and Carols Mortenson (7th place) are two familiar faces at the top as they sit with 393,400 and 371,600 chips each.
Here are the top 15 players as of right now:
Rank/Player/Chips
1 – Robert Mizrachi 523,200
2 – Jayde Tran 406,700
3 – Eric Richards 399,500
4 – Bryan Devonshire 393,400
5 – Cory Carroll 384,700
6 – John Celii 376,800
7 – Carlos Mortensen 371,600
8 – Kenny Tran 367,400
9 – Michael Gracz 364,800
10 – Jonathan Kalmar 333,900
11 – Marcel Luske 325,200
12 – Steve Wong 306,600
13 – Saifuddin Ahmad 306,500
14 – Soheil Shamseddin 297,500
15 – Philip Galfond 295,700
Even though two days are down in this year’s WPT World Championships, there is still plenty more action to take place before everything is said and done. Keep checking Flop Turn River for updates on what’s happening with the biggest event for the WPT season.