Reason Leads as 16 Advance to Day 3
The 2012-13 World Series of Poker Circuit Foxwoods Main Event continued on Sunday as the surviving players from two Day 1 starting flights returned to Mashantucket, Connecticut to play through the money bubble at the top 63 on their way toward the final table. After 13 levels of play, just 16 players remained with Ben Reason and his stack of 1.704 million in chips leading the way. Other still in contention include Paul Snead, Pete Campo and Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul.
You can read about Reason's meteoric rise simply by scrolling down a bit in the blog. In the meantime, let's recap the day's action starting with Aryeh Cohen, who dominated the action on Saturday on his way to becoming the end-of-day chip leader with 180,000. Unfortunately for him, his luck turned around on Day 2, and he was eliminated within two hours.
It began in Level 15 (1,000/2,000/300) when Cohen got involved in a monster pot with Erek Gaines, who was a top-six stack. Kurt Jewell opened the action with a raise to 4,200, Cohen responded with a three-bet to 12,500 from the hijack, the cutoff called, and then Gaines four-bet to 30,000 from the small blind. Jewell folded, Cohen shipped, and the cutoff got out of the way. Gaines, who had 109,400 total, called off.
Gaines: 
Cohen: 
Cohen was crestfallen upon seeing the cards and with good reason. According to the PokerNews Odds Calculator, he had just an 18.23% chance of winning the hand. That dropped to 8.38% on the 
flop, and the 
turn knocked it down even further to 4.55%. Cohen needed a ten on the river to eliminate Gaines and take down the monster pot, but it wasn't in the cards as the 
peeled off. Gaines vaulted to 240,000 while Cohen was left with approximately 45,000. He was eliminated less than ten minutes later.
Other players who failed to secure a payday were Micah Raskin, Chris Tryba, Aaron Massey, Will “The Thrill” Failla, Greg Raymer, Andy Frankenberger, Ronnie Bardah, John Dibella, Nancy Birnbaum, Victor Ramdin and the aforementioned Jewell.
With 64 players remaining, hand-for-hand play was initiated, though it didn’t take long for the bubble to burst. In the first hand, Bob Ricciuti shipped all in for 90,500 from middle position and Eric Rando, who was the Day 1a chip leader, called from the button.
Action was halted until all other tables finished their hands, and then a crowd surrounded Table 4 to watch the action. "Of course I would be the bubble boy," a disgusted Ricciuti stated upon discovering his 
was dominated by the 
of Rando. As has happened to so many men in the past, the ladies proved to be the end of Ricciuti as the board ran out an uninspiring 
.
From there, the in-the-money eliminations began to mount including those of Aditya Prasetyo (58th — $3,051), Tim Reilly (56th — $3,051), Justin Pechie (53rd — $3,329) and Luke Vrabel (44th — $3,606), who was eliminated in Level 21 with the blinds at 4,000/8,000/1,000. It happened when a preflop raising war resulted in Vrabel being all in preflop for 248,000 holding the 
. Unfortunately for him, Lall Bharat held the 
and had 3,000 more in chips. Vrabel, known as "Bdbeatslayer" online, was no doubt hoping to deliver a bad beat of his own, but it wasn't in the cards as the board ran out 
.
The eliminations kept coming over the next four levels as Shawn Suller (37th — $3,606), Fabio D’Agata (32nd — $4,438), John Yale (29th — $5,178), John Pito (27th — $5,918), Z Stein (26ht — $5,918), Buck Ramsay (25th — $5,918), Ylon Schwartz (22nd — $6,935) and Greg Folchetti (19th — $8,229) all his the rail.
Here's a look at how the final 16 stack up:
| Seat | Player | Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eric Rando | 458,000 |
| 2 | Pete Campo | 442,000 |
| 3 | Mike Massri | 585,000 |
| 4 | Paul Snead | 568,000 |
| 5 | Bobby Corcione | 862,000 |
| 6 | Ethan Foulkes | 916,000 |
| 7 | Lall Bharat | 680,000 |
| 8 | Alex Wilson | 693,000 |
| 9 | Chris Mintchev | 910,000 |
| 1 | Cory Waaland | 821,000 |
| 2 | --empty-- | N/A |
| 3 | Chris Schonbach | 663,000 |
| 4 | John McNabola | 1,468,000 |
| 5 | --empty-- | N/A |
| 6 | Stephen Dare | 1,704,000 |
| 7 | Kevin Saul | 484,000 |
| 8 | Eric Blair | 298,000 |
| 9 | Ben Reason | 769,000 |
The third and final day of the WSOP Circuit Foxwoods Main Event will kick off at noon EST as the final 16 will play down to a winner. Who’ll take home the $194,178 first-place prize and earn a coveted spot in the National Championship? Join us then as we bring you all the latest and greatest poker action from the great state of Connecticut!