Alex Livingston Leads Final 28 in Event #23: $1,500 Eight Game Mix; Philip Long Looks to Repeat
The second day of Event #23: $1,500 Eight Game Mix has come to an end after ten exciting levels of high-quality play. The record-breaking field saw just 225 return to the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino for the second day of this tournament and of those, just 28 found a bag by nights end, with Alex Livingston coming out as the player to beat with 587,000 chips.
Livingston started the day with around double the average stack and used that to his advantage as he pushed around his table early in the day. Before the dinner break, he had already over doubled his start of the day stack and was among the top of the chip counts. The Nova Scotia, Canada native put his foot on the gas pedal throughout the evening and never let up, applying immense amounts of pressure to everyone he faced.
The Canadian has just under $600,000 in WSOP cashes, with a large chunk coming in the 2013 44th Annual World Series of Poker Main Event for $451,398, after finishing in 13th place in the WSOP Main Event the year Ryan Riess won it. Most of Livingston's cashes since then have come in non-hold'em events, and he has proven to be a player of versatility who can duke it out with the best in any form of poker.
Starting right behind Livingston on the leaderboard is draw-game specialist Chris Vitch with 395,000. Vitch started the day off strong, knocking out Michael Mizrachi and Eric Rodawig in 2-7 Triple Draw when he turned over a Number Four. He sat amongst the chipleaders for the first half of the day and it was not until after dinner that he started to plummet. Vitch fought his way back during the latter stages of the night, finding a stack that would put him second in command heading into the final day of this event, as he searches for WSOP bracelet number three.
Muril Souza may be a familiar-looking name and the reason being is that he just took down Event #14: $1,500 H.O.R.S.E less than a week ago. This is the first time the Brazilian has ever been to the WSOP and he has already accomplished more than many professional players. Souza will be starting the final day of this event third in chips with 383,000 and has proven already that his first bracelet was not luck.
Last years tournament saw a player by the name of Philip Long take down the event for a $147,347 first place prize. Miraculously, he is still in the field and maybe even more impressive is that he will start the final day's play fourth in chips with 353,000. Long was short during the beginning of the day and it was near the bubble popping that he really started to gain traction. He will be looking to secure back-to-back bracelets in the same event he won just a year ago and add another six-figure cash to his resume.
Other stacks on the larger side of things heading into the final day include John Trumbul (348,500), bracelet winner Chris Klodnicki (348,000) and Matt Glantz (342,000) who are the only other runners above the 300,000 mark.
The star-studded field drew a number of bracelet winners, some that are still in contention are Rami Boukai (257,500), Chris Bjorin (246,500), Vladimir Shchemelev (226,000), and Cory Zeidman (108,000).
There were 225 to start the day out of the original 612 that joined and right before dinner break the bubble popped. The remaining 92 were all now guaranteed at least a min-cash of $2,257. All remaining runners for Day 3 will be getting at least $4,841 for their efforts and the eventual winner will be pulling in $177,294.
The final day of this event will see limits start at 10,000/20,000, which should make the beginning of the day exciting as the average stack will be just over ten bets. Play will resume at 2 p.m. tomorrow and will not end until a winner is crowned.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be here to bring you updates through the remainder of this event, so stay tuned as all of the action unfolds.