PokerStars.net NAPT Mohegan Sun Day 2: Morgan Climbs to the Top
The second day of action at the PokerStars.net North American Poker Tour Mohegan Sun wrapped up on Thursday with 125 players remaining in the field. At day’s start, 443 players entered the room to remove their chips from the bags and begin play. When all six levels of action were complete, Jordan Morgan sat atop the pack with 705,100 chips.
Morgan began the day with 55,400 chips. Slowly and steadily, his stack grew throughout the day and every time someone glanced at Morgan’s stack, it had another tower added to it. Nobody else was able to bag up over 600,000, making Morgan’s closest competitor Firas Massouh with 571,000. Also in the top ten to finish out the day are top players Vanessa Selbst (542,600), Brandon Hall (491,500), James Akenhead (463,700), Ryan D’Angelo (450,800), Lars Bonding (443,100) and Sorel Mizzi (442,500).
Selbst used constant aggression all day long to power her way to a big stack. She was seated with Clayton Mozdzen for most of the day and the two clashed more than once. In one of the last confrontations of the day, Selbst three-bet Mozdzen’s opening raise of 7,500 to 25,000. Selbst was on the button and after the small blind called, Mozdzen made the call.
The three players saw a flop of 9♣7♦4♥. The small blind checked and then Mozdzen fired 28,700. Selbst asked for a count on his stack and insisted that she needed an exact one. This wasn’t the first time she asked for an exact count on Mozdzen’s stack and he kindly obliged. Selbst then called and the small blind folded.
The turn was the 8♦ and Mozdzen checked. Selbst slid out a big stack of blue chips worth 5,000 each. Mozden flashed pocket jacks as he flung them into the muck, giving Selbst the pot and pushing her up to 570,000 chips.
Another player to have a great day building a stack of chips was a name some of you may recognize: Phil Ivey. Despite having his chair turned perpendicular to the table and spending most of his time watching The Masters on the projection screen on the wall, Ivey was able to quietly build his stack up to 356,600. He never really got into any big confrontations, but rather got chips when he wanted to. There were a few rotations where Ivey just stepped on the gas and began raising every hand preflop and firing bets on every street he saw. His opponents backed down almost every time, allowing Ivey to constantly increase.
Team PokerStars Pro was only left with three remaining players. Vanessa Rousso, Dennis Phillips and new Canadian team member Marcello Del Grosso all survived the day. Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy, David Fox, Jeff Madsen, David Williams and Jonathan Aguiar also made it through to Day 3.
Among those less fortunate players were Team PokerStars Pros Daniel Negreanu and Jason Mercier. Negreanu went out when his pocket jacks were cracked by Aaron Lerner’s pocket sevens after a seven fell on the river. Allen Kessler, Chau Giang, Kathy Libert and Hoyt Corkins also failed to make the cut.
Play resumes Friday at 12 p.m. EST. PokerNews will have all the live coverage you can handle and you can stay updated with us on Twitter as well.
