Gross Leads Final 22 to Conclude Day 2
Day 2 of Event #41: $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha (Six-Handed) is done, and after another action-packed day of short-handed, four-card poker it was Steve Gross emerging at night's end as the leader among the 22 who survived the day. Gross will come back to a stack of 526,000 to start play tomorrow.
Sorel Mizzi had led the 117 returners today, but soon after play began Ville Mattila surged past Mizzi and everyone else to claim the top spot in the counts for much of the afternoon and early evening. Meanwhile the field trimmed down under 50 players and toward the money bubble, with the bursting finally happening just a few minutes before the dinner break when Michel Abecassis was the unfortunate 43rd-place finisher.
After dinner the bustouts continued, with Chad Brown (39th), Dan Smith (38th), Tony Cousineau (37th), Juha Helppi (36th), Daniel Negreanu (34th), Matt Giannetti (33rd), Manuel Bevand (30th), Scott Bohlman (29th), and Jamie Pickering (28th) among those going out over the next couple of hours.
It was during the latter part of the night that Jesse Rockowitz began his ascent to the top of the counts, hovering near the half-million chip mark for the last stages of the evening, before finally Gross passed him and that milestone just before night's end. During that last stretch the two Deebs — Freddy and Shaun — went out next in 27th and 26th, respectively, with Victor Shuchleis (25th), Davidi Kitai (24th), and Stephen Wolfe (23rd) being the final eliminations of the night.
Joining Gross and Rockowitz on Monday will be Mattila and Mizzi, with Yevgeniy Timoshenko and Event #2: $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em (Eight-Handed) winner Trevor Pope also still in the mix.
Play resumes tomorrow at 2 p.m. for the third and final day of Event #41. Thanks for following our coverage thus far, and be sure to check in tomorrow to see who among the final 22 will win the next WSOP gold bracelet.