Nakanishi Has Big Chip Lead Among Short Deck Final Five

Only five players remain in Event #60: $10,000 Short Deck No-Limit Hold’em. Shota Nakanishi leads the remaining bracelet hopefuls in this only Short Deck event of the summer here at the World Series of Poker at Bally’s and Paris Las Vegas.

Nakanishi (2,562,000) is a Short Deck specialist out of Japan who has played many hours of the variant online. He was also in this same event at last year's WSOP. He has already surpassed last year's result and looks to turn his chip lead into his maiden gold bracelet.

Final Day Seat Assignments

Seat	Player	Country	Chip Count	Antes
1	Sean Winter	United States	553,000	69
2	Stephen Chidwick	United Kingdom	1,423,000	178
3	Brian Rast	United States	855,000	107
4	Ben Lamb	United States	1,207,000	151
5	Shota Nakanishi	Japan	2,562,000	320

Action was fast and wild in the early parts of Day 2. The day started with 49 entries; eliminations came quickly at the beginning of the day. Some early casualties included Phil Ivey, Chance Kornuth, Daniel Zack, David Williams, and Sam Soverel.

Players blew right past the bubble, only going to hand-for-hand play for a few hands. It was Michael Watson who left just shy of the money when he ran his ace-king into the pocket kings of Sean Winter.

One player that was happy to find a cash, albeit not as deep a run as he would have liked, was Daniel Negreanu. He placed 15th after his combo draw ran into the flopped trips of Nakanishi. He was in good spirits all night and showed off some Korean and Japanese language skills to the delight of his tablemates who spoke the languages.

Once play reached the final table, Robert Wilke was the first to bow out. He flopped top and bottom two pair against the pair and straight draw of Stephen Chidwick. Chidwick made running trips on the turn and river to send Wilke home.

The final elimination of the night was of Bristol, Tennesse native Scott Smile. A home game lover, Smile wore that namesake smile all night and enjoyed his deep run in the event. Family and friends were following along with his run. In addition to his poker playing, Smile mentioned that he's involved with music production and his son is in the band "The Buddz."