32 Players, One Bracelet: Day 3 Awaits
It was a long Day 2 yesterday in Event #61: $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha, and with 32 players still with chips it promises to be another long one today as those remaining battle to determine a winner. The last WSOP gold bracelet to be awarded this summer awaits the champ, with the Event No. 62: $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em Main Event not finishing up until November.
A dozen different countries are represented among the final 32, with the Russian Alexey Rybin returning to a stack of nearly 1 million to lead all. Mike Watson (Canada), Johannes Strassmann (Germany), Nadar Kakhmazov (Russia), and Nicolas Faure (France) all have lots of chips as well to begin the third day of play.
Daniel Alaei — who won this same event back in 2010 — also currently has an above-average stack, as does Jonathan Duhamel who of course won the WSOP Main Event that same year. There are a host of other familiar names still in the hunt, too, including Alex Kravchenko, Tom Marchese, Nacho Barbero, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Stephen Chidwick, Tony Cousineau, Jared Bleznick, and Joseph Cheong.
Many have big stacks, but the blinds are getting big as well, which suggests we'll see a fast pace especially early on today. The schedule calls for them to play down to a winner today, although if they can't get to a winner after 11 one-hour levels, they'll stop the tourney, take tomorrow off (allowing players still in to play the last Main Event flight), and return on Tuesday to settle matters.
Play resumes at 2 p.m. local time, so return then for start-to-finish coverage of Event #61. As we await the tourney's restart, here's Lynn Gilmartin to get us caught up with all of the action currently happening at the WSOP: