Tripodi Leads Day 1b w/ "Jungleman" Close Behind; Three Former Main Event Winners Advance
The 2013 World Series of Poker continued Sunday by crowning two more bracelet winners—Brian Yoon in Event #58: $1,111 Little One for One Drop and Loni Harwood in Event #60: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em—and kicking off Day 1b of the $10,000 Main Event. All three tournament rooms were filled to the brim as 1,942 players took their shot in the second of three starting flights. Even though that was down a bit from last year’s 2,114 players, it was more than twice as many as Day 1a’s 943. That said, Monday’s Day 1c is expected to draw more than the first two flights combined to put the 2013 WSOP Main Event over 6,000 runners.
After five two-hour levels of play, Clement Tripodi finished as the Day 1b chip leader of the advancing 1,300 with 207,500, which is a bit more than Evan Panesis, who bagged up 190,975 to lead the advancing 584 players from Day 1a. Other Day 1b big stacks include Daniel "Jungleman" Cates (198,425), Robert Russ (176,650), Rullo Gianluca (167,800), Robert Neyhorayan (146,100), Sorel Mizzi (134,100), Olivier Elissandre (128,975), John Ott (126,375), Tyler Denson (125,000), Richard Hu (118,450) and Adrien Allain (118,125).
Cates, who is a well-known online player, got the majority of his chips in what was likely the biggest pot of the day. You can read about that hand by clicking here.
Five former Main Event champions were in the field today, but not all of them would survive. The 2004 WSOP champ, Greg Raymer, fell in Level 3, while Scotty Nguyen followed him out the door in Level 5 after being on the bad end of a set-over-set situation. The three that did survive were Doyle Brunson, Chris Moneymaker and Dan Harrington.
Other players who failed to make it through the day include Bernard Lee, Marco Johnson, Lex Velduis, David Bach, Yuval Bronshtein, Mickey Petersen, Nick Abou Risk, Brad Garrett, Kevin Saul, Erick Lindgren, John Monnette, MMA star Georges St. Pierre and last year's runner-up Jesse Sylvia, just to name a few.
While a slew of players fell, the following players all advanced to Day 2b: Annette Obrestad (108,750), Cliff Josephy (96,900), Rupert Elder (94,800), Scott Seiver (94,100), Matthias De Meulder (88,200), Melanie Weisner (81,700), Maxim Lykov (81,125), Dan Smith (54,575), Galen Hall (51,050), Tony Gregg (48,650), Lauren Kling (47,500) and Eugene Katchalov (37,150).
Day 1c, which drew a record 3,418 players last year, will begin at 12 p.m. on Monday and is expected to be the biggest field yet. Join us then as we bring you all the action and eliminations from the third and final starting day of the 2013 WSOP $10,000 Main Event. For now, we will leave you with an exclusive look at the diamond-encrusted Main Event bracelet that will be awarded to the champion of this event - the richest trophy in all sporting history.