Joao Vieira Bags Day 2 Chip Lead, Joe Cada Among Big Stacks
Portuguese grinder Joao Vieira managed to end Day 2 of Event #70: $5,000 No Limit Holdem 6-Handed at the 2019 World Series of Poker with the chip lead. He bagged an impressive 2,100,000 which is about two-and-a-half times the average stack of 870,000. Shahar Levi sits pretty in second with 1,800,000, while Olivier Busquet (1,433,000) and four-time WSOP bracelet winner and 2009 Main Event champion Joe Cada (1,389,000) also start Day 3 of the tournament very comfortably stacked.
Late registration closed right at the start of the day and the total number of entries ended at 815 which is a record breaker. The 65 new entries caused a small delay at the start when they had to open up a couple of new tables, but a total of 282 players started Day 2 and only 28 managed to survive. There was money to be made for 123 fortunate players and they would take home at least $7,402. The winner of the event will take home a lot more - a massive $758,011.
Day 2 Action
The inaugural ''shuffle up and deal'' was announced thirty minutes past the original start time of 2 p.m. A flurry of eliminations followed as the new entries only started the day with 15 big blinds. Niklas Astedt, Jerry Wong, David Peters, Ben Yu, and Chris Ferguson were among the late entries and they all ended being eliminated before the money.
A couple of the early eliminations include Bryn Kenney, Thai Ha, Davidi Kitai, and Parker Talbot. They all busted out before the money was reached in the tournament. Marc MacDonnell, Dan Zack, Seth Davies, 2012 Main Event Champion Greg Merson, and Tom McCormick also missed out on a piece of the $3,789,750 prize pool.
Once there were 124 players left the tournament halted to start hand-for-hand play but that turned out to be unnecessary as the bubble burst in that hand. Chris Hunichen was all in and at risk with pocket kings on the bubble but he managed to double up against ace-king and secure himself of a place in the money. He managed to find a bag at the end of the day with 1,051,000 which is above average.
Others that were fortunate enough to make the money but unfortunate enough to miss Day 3 include Ryan Laplante (120th - $7,402), Mustapha Kanit (119th - $7,402), Sonny Franco (114th - $7,402), Samuel Vousden (102nd - $7,618), Anatoly Filatov (85th -$8,029), Leon Tsoukernik (75th - $8,659), Dietrich Fast (63rd -$9,554), Koray Aldemir (50th - $10,776), Dan Shak (41st - $14,622), and [Removed:172] (32nd - $17,575).
One of the players that did make it through to Day 3 is Richard Sheils. He managed to bag 842,000 which is slightly under average. He played multiple hours of Day 2 on the same table as his brother Brandon Sheils, but while both managed to make a deep run in the tournament, Brandon was eliminated with only 15 minutes left of the day. Brandon cashed for $21,558 while his brother has a good position at the start of Day 3.
Other players that will come back for Day 3 are Day 1 chip leader Barry Hutter (1,047,000), Pierre Calamusa (965,000), Marton Czuczor (710,000), Twitch streamer Patrick 'IrEgption' Tardif (634,000), Ankush Mandavia (614,000), and Joey Couden (404,000). All players still in the tournament are guaranteed to take home at least $21,558.
The remaining 28 players will come back on Wednesday, July 3rd, in the Miranda room of the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino at 2 p.m. local time.
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