Gus Hansen Bags, Brandon Meyers Still Leads WPT Five Diamond
The World Poker Tour crossed yet another milestone for the year, this time with a new record for entries in a $10,000 buy-in event. Season XVI of the Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio attracted a whopping 812 entries, up from the previous record of 791 that entered last year’s contest.
The $7.876 million prize pool translates to a first-place prize of $1,958,065 and 81 players in the money. The runner-up is also slated to receive a six-figure score of over $1.1 million, while a min-cash will be worth $19,691.
Las Vegas poker pro Brandon Meyers claimed the chip lead once again on Day 2, putting 388,100 in the bag. The second day of the tournament seemed to go much like the first with him making big hands in key spots against players with strong, but losing hands and also finding good spots to make moves.
Meyers has had success at this venue before as he finished fourth in the 2011 Bellagio Cup Main Event for $150K. He is undoubtedly looking to best that cash this week. He is also looking to ride some momentum from his deep run in the WSOP Main Event this year where he finished in 42nd place on Day 6 for $179K.
Some previous WPT champions to bag healthy stacks were Daniel Strelitz (310,900), Anthony Gregg (225,600), Taylor Paur (166,000), Mike Del Vecchio (155,100) and Kevin Eyster (136,700).
Also still in contention are three of the five three-time WPT champs. Darren Elias bagged a big stack of 214,700. Gus Hansen, who won the first-ever WPT event, the 2002 Five Diamond World Poker Classic, finished the day with 118,700 after letting his stack blind off for a bit whilst he played high stakes cash in Bobby's Room. The third — Chino Rheem — bagged over starting stack.
The remaining field of 320 players is still littered with plenty of big poker names which will be colliding on Day 3 with a noon start. Blinds will be starting at 600/1,200 with a 200 ante.
Continue to follow PokerNews for daily recaps and stories from the tournament floor, and live updates on the action will continue to be provided by the WPT as well.
Photos courtesy of WPT/Joe Giron
