Seth Davies Bags Chip Lead at the End of Day 2 of $2,500 No-Limit Hold'em

Event #43: $2,500 No-Limit Hold'em Day 2 has drawn to a close at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino. Following ten hours of action-packed play, the 297 hopefuls have been reduced to just 34. They will all be hoping to take home the top prize of $507,274 as well as a gold bracelet when they return on Saturday, June 23 at noon.

Top of the chip counts is Seth Davies (1,305,000). He was climbing steadily over the course of the day and about an hour before the end of play today, he knocked out Yuri Dzivielevski. Dzievielevski had two pair when the chips went in on the turn but Davies rivered a better two pair to propel himself towards the end-of-day lead.

He will be facing tough opposition, as experienced pro's Jeff Hakim (1,164,000) and Javier Fernandez (1,093,000) also bagged over a million. Other notables who put themselves in a solid spot for Day 3 include Andrew Brokos (625,000) and Daniel Buzgon (570,000) and Ismael Bojang (497,000).

This tournament has attracted a host of big names and of those, David Peters (480,000), Chris Ferguson (402,000), Ryan Laplante (292,000), Andreas Klatt (230,000) all have won at least one bracelet in their careers. Each of them will return for the third day to add another piece of hardware to their already impressive poker résumé's.

Those who didn't fare as well today were 2017 finalist Asi Moshe, Justin Bonomo, Humberto Brenes, Kristen Bicknell, Chance Kornuth, Georgios Sotiropoulos, Peter Eichhardt, Dutch Boyd, Maria Konnikova, David “Bakes” Baker, Nick Shulman and John Racener.

Day 3 kicks off on Saturday, June 23 at noon in the Tan section of the Amazon Room. Players will come back to a small blind 6,000, big blind of 12,000 and a running ante of 2,000. PokerNews will bring live coverage from the moment cards are in the air until the end of play. Given the number of players remaining and deepness of play, this tournament will likely not conclude at the end of Day 3 and an unscheduled extra fourth day will likely be added to determine the winner.