Day 2 Concludes; Gironda Leads Tough Final 10
An exciting second day of play has concluded in Event 40: $2,500 Limit Hold'em - Six Handed, with just 10 players out of the 101 who began play today surviving to Saturday's final day. Vincent Gironda is bagging the most chips to end the night, with Terrence Chan his closest competitor.
Gironda started Day 2 at the top of the counts as well, with Michael Reed, Andre Akkari, and Chan all not far off the lead. Meanwhile many of the shorter stacks hit the rail during the afternoon and early evening, including Daniel Idema, John Monnette, Bill Chen, Eugene Katchalov, Humberto Brenes, Dan Kelly, Joe Cassidy, and, eventually, Akkari.
It was during Level 14, the last before the dinner break, that the cash bubble burst and the final 36 had been set. By then Chan, Joep van den Bijgaart, and Sorel Mizzi had surged up over the 100,000-chip mark to the top of the counts. They'd maintain their stacks while the field continued to shrink, with Scott Seiver (35th), John Hennigan (31st), Jeff Lisandro (30th), Michael Reed (26th), Jon Turner (23rd), and Dan Shak (21st) among those failing to survive to the end of the night.
By the time they reached the final Level 18, Gironda had reclaimed the chip lead as the first player to a half million chips, with Chan, Mizzi, and van den Bijgaart all building formidable stacks as well. Maria Ho was in the mix, too, battling with a short stack until the field dwindled to the final tables, then finally falling in 11th in a hand versus Chan.
There a lot of familiar names among the 10 who'll be returning. Here they are, as well as the stacks to which they'll be returning:
| Position | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vincent Gironda | 550,000 |
| 2 | Terrence Chan | 418,500 |
| 3 | Sorel Mizzi | 314,500 |
| 4 | Joep van den Bijgaart | 273,000 |
| 5 | Hans Minocha | 176,500 |
| 6 | Brent Wheeler | 163,000 |
| 7 | Chad Brown | 137,500 |
| 8 | Rep Porter | 97,000 |
| 9 | Marco Johnson | 71,000 |
| 10 | Ronnie Bardah | 64,000 |
Join us tomorrow at 2 PM local time when we'll bring you all the action as we find out who among these 10 will be grabbing the gold bracelet and $182,088 first prize.