The tournament clock has struck 10:00 -- minutes that is -- thus signaling the end of Day 2 here at the PCA Main Event.
The day was filled with action from start to finish as the field whittled down from 884 players to approximately 300. (The number on the board currently reads 314, but it's been that way for a solid half hour).
Praz Bansi is your certifiable unofficial overnight chip leader with 960,800 in chips. A significant majority of those chips came from Team PokerStars Pro J.C. Alvarado in a hand in which the Team Mexico Pro was eliminated from the competition. Alvarado flopped top set (queens) but Bansi turned a flush. Needless to say, the two got it all in and Alvarado failed to improve on the river, cementing the pot for the Englishman.
Joining Bansi at the top of the overnight leaderboard are big stacks [Removed:197], Marc Etienne McLaughlin and Wayne Bentley. Team PokerStars Pros Ivan Demidov, Dario Minieri and Johnny Lodden also fared well this afternoon and each will return tomorrow for Day 3 play.
Among the less fortunate players who failed to reach the bag-and-tag portion of the day were Team PokerStars Pros Benjamin Kang, Barry Greenstein, Humberto Brenes, Peter Eastgate and Marcel Luske.
Action is scheduled to resume at 12:00 noon EST Friday afternoon. Join us then for our continued coverage of the 2010 PokerStars.net PCA Main Event from Atlantis Resort, Hotel & Casino in The Bahamas.
Phil Ivey managed to double up in the waning minutes of the day through an unknown opponent.
We caught up to the hand with the board showing and about 60,000 already in the middle. Ivey checked, his opponent bet 27,000 and Ivey called.
The river brought the and Ivey checked once more, prompting his opponent to move all in, putting Ivey to a decision for all of his chips (about 70,000).
Ivey made the call and his opponent tabled for nothing but a missed flush draw. Ivey collected the 245,000 pot with a meager .
The tournament staff has announced that they're pausing the clock with 10 minutes left in the final level of play and each table will be playing five more hands.
In what was one of the biggest pots of the day, [Removed:197] has just doubled through Alex Kamberis to move to 505,000 in chips.
Daniel Negreanu opened the pot with a raise to 7,200 from early position. Action then folded around the table to [Removed:198] in the cutoff who called. A fold from the button brought the action to Kamberis in the small blind who kicked it up to 26,500. The big blind folded, as did Negreanu, sending the action back to [Removed:198] who four-bet to what appeared to be 40,000 more. Kamberis then five-bet shoved all in and [Removed:198] made the call for less, calling off the rest of his stack:
[Removed:198]:
Kamberis:
The ensuing board filled out and [Removed:198]'s aces held up to claim the pot, worth just over half a million in chips.
With a raise in front of him, Amit Makhija moved all in for his last 97,000 chips. His opponent thought it over long and hard before making the call with the covering stack, and Makhija was now at risk. And trailing:
Showdown
Makhija:
Opponent:
The flop would find Makhija as it rolled out . The turn and river came safe-safe, the and respectively, and the young pro comes from behind to notch a big double up. He's sitting just under 200,000 chips now with about 20 minutes left in Day 2.
Amanda Baker has just doubled her way back out of the danger zone. Baker got it in with against an opponent's unknown hand. We walked up just in time to see the river fall on a board of . With her Broadway straight, Baker has increased her stack to about 95,000.
Our own Gloria Balding reports that Daniel Negreanu has just doubled through to 80,200 in chips after besting an opponent's with his own . Negreanu spiked two pair, aces and nines, on the flop to secure the double up.