Hardt Bags Chip Lead as 19 Survive Day 2 WSOPC Horseshoe Hammond Main Event
It was a rambunctious Day 2 of the WSOP Circuit Horseshoe Hammond $1,700 Main Event as a field that started with 208 strong was cut down to 19 in 13 hours of scintillating play.
It was Eric Hardt who emerged as the leader of the final 19 players by the slimmest of margins at the end of the day with a count of 2,685,000, which just barely edged out Mark Uminn, who finished with 2,675,000. Both Hardt and Uminn grew their stacks steadily throughout the day and rose to the top of the counts when there were about 50 players left and stayed at the top until play ended. In third position was Michael Rossitto, who bagged 2,595,000.
Right behind the top three is Casey Carroll with 2,330,000. He was poised to become the stranglehold chip leader on the last hand of the night as his pocket tens held the lead in a flip against Andrew Ostapchenko all the way until an ace on the river took back what would have been a boost of almost a million chips. That one card drastically changed the landscape of the final counts as Ostapchenko now sits fifth in chips with 2,090,000 when he could have easily been out the door instead.
Faisal Sadruddin was the only other player to bag over two million with 2,065,000. Another notable player to end the day with a good amount of chips was WSOP bracelet winner Alan Percal, who finished the night with 1,820,000.
Action of the Day
It took four hands of hand-for-hand play to burst the money bubble at 160 players left after the first break. It was a bad outing for the start-of-day chip leaders Jordan Jayne and Ryan Lally as both were eliminated early on without being able to gain any real momentum.
Eliminations would continue to come at a steady pace including Sam Cosby (42nd), Jean Gaspard (39th), Aaron Massey (33rd) and Aram Zobian (27th). With 21 players remaining, play slowed considerably and it took an hour before Eric Salazar bit the dust in 21st place. John Simon would be the final victim of the night when he was eliminated in 20th place.
PokerNews will be with you the whole way as the 19 players remaining will return at noon local time to level 27 and will play all the way down until a WSOP Circuit ring winner is bejeweled.