Andrew Esposito Leads Final 11 into Day 3 at 2:00 p.m. Tomorrow!
Another long day of poker is in the books as the Main Event field has been whittled down to the final 11 after the maximum amount of play. Leading the way is Andrew Esposito who bagged up 11,650,000 after taking down several huge pots towards the end of the night. In second is Spencer Champlin with 9,085,000 who busted two players in the last hands of play to rocket him near the top and rounding out the top three is Jerry Yen with 8,100,000.
Day 3 Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Andrew Esposito | 11,650,000 | 73 |
| 2 | Spencer Champlin | 9,085,000 | 57 |
| 3 | Jerry Yen | 8,100,000 | 51 |
| 4 | Cedrric Trevino | 5,270,000 | 33 |
| 5 | Chris Staats | 5,270,000 | 33 |
| 6 | David Mzareulov | 5,100,000 | 32 |
| 7 | Charles Sinn | 4,900,000 | 31 |
| 8 | Adam Hendrix | 4,230,000 | 26 |
| 9 | Tony Bunch | 3,960,000 | 25 |
| 10 | Tommy Zhang | 2,985,000 | 19 |
| 11 | David Diaz | 2,960,000 | 19 |
Day 2 was slated to play down until the final table, or until the end of level 28, whichever came first. It seemed at first that it would be an early day, as players were busting left and right well into the afternoon. But once it got down to the last four tables, the action began to really slow down as pay jumps began to take effect.
After the players returned from their dinner break at 7:00, it was Day 1e's chipleader Kassim Panjwani who was the dominant chip leader, followed by Charles Sinn and Chris Staats. Unfortunately for Panjwani, he then lost a series of big hands and eventually fell at the hands of Caitlin Comeskey. Comeskey herself had a great day of play, including a big bluff against Adam Hendrix that propelled her deep into the night, but she eventually met her end in 15th against Cedric Trevino who held aces to her ace-five. She exited the night a few spots after her partner-in-crime, Jessica Richards hit the rail due to a run-in with Esposito.
Richards started the day as a top five stack but lost a big flip in her first hand but manage to surge back and was at the top of the counts for most of the day. Unfortunately, her run came to an end after she flopped a set on an all-diamond flop and ran into Esposito's nut-flush and couldn't improve. As for Trevino, he also played a solid game today, picking his spots carefully and really got a boost when he held ace-king and Jason Fitzpatrick shoved into him with ace-deuce for almost 30 big blinds. He then went on to knock out Jason Daly in a big pot later in the night and he used this momentum to bag up a stack for Day 3.
These 11 players will return tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. and will resume play at the start of Level 29 with blinds at 80,000/160,000 with a 160,000 big blind ante. They will then play until there are nine players left, at which point they will move over to the stream table to play out the remainder of the tournament on the Champions Club live stream on YouTube.
All players returning are guaranteed a minimum payout of $18,290, but of course they will all be eyeballing the $234,730 that is sitting up top.
As always, stay tuned in with PokerNews as we will be bringing you all of the action until a champion is crowned here in Houston, Texas, so don't go anywhere!