Day 2 is In the Bag; Rijkenberg Flying High

They're pumping Coldplay through the speakers, and that's our cue to get out of here.

Day 2 is done and dusted here at the WSOPE Main Event, and our starting field has been dashed to bits. The remaining 328 (of the 539 starters) walked back into the tournament room today, but more than 200 of the walked right back out with a frown over the course of six testing levels. Including the start-of-day chip leader, Jamie Rosen. And the third-place stack of Tommy Vedes. It was Vedes' birthday today, but he was the one doing the giving, quickly passing his chips out to his table mates and heading off to (hopefully) celebrate.

With the bags out on the tables, it looks like Constant Rijkenberg has done the most work today, and his stack of 462,800 puts him atop the pack heading for the run to the money tomorrow.

Rijkenberg's finishing stack is still less than Rifat Palevic's high point on the day. Palevic was the first player to amass a big stack today, working his count up over the half-million mark at one point. The aggression that gave him the chips took a chunk of them away, however, and Palevic had to settle for a finishing count of 353,500 -- still quite healthy. Others who are still in the hunt for this title include Erik Seidel, Barry Greenstein, Robert Mizrachi, Victor Ramdin, Patrik Antonius, Tony G, and the defending champion, James Bord. And don't look now, but last year's 13th-place finisher, Hoyt Corkins, finds himself in second place overall with 429,900 at night's end.

Everyone's chasing Rijkenberg, though, and the Dutchman certainly knows what it takes to win a big tournament. Rijkenberg is the EPT San Remo champion from a couple years back, and his game seems to have grown even a bit more mature in the time since then. He'll bring almost a half-million chips back with him tomorrow.

Play is set to resume at noon tomorrow, and we'll play eight-handed from here on out.

Until then, all that's left is goodnight!

Tags: Constant Rijkenberg