Ivan "ILS007" Stokes Bags Unfathomable Chip Lead After Day 2 of the $10,300 WCOOP Main Event
Day 2 of the 2023 $10,300 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) Main Event is in the books. At the start of the day, 176 people who had bagged on Day 1 were joined by 89 fresh faces. Across the two days, a total of 600 entries were made, matching the guaranteed prize pool of $6,000,000. Seventy-nine of the 265 who started would be paid out, and indeed many players have already had funds added to their PokerStars account, as only 38 hopefuls bagged and tagged for Day 3.
There was almost no question who would bag the most chips of all, as Ivan "ILS007" Stokes secured an enormous chip lead just before the bubble, and never looked back. He bagged a staggering 16,606,251 chips, good for more than 200 big blinds and almost double that of anyone else. Despite his big lead, he is not in the clear, as he is being chased by one of online poker’s greatest names, Niklas "Lena900" Astedt, who is taking 9,996,387 chips to Day 3. Jamil "Jamil11" Wakil rounds out the top three and is the only other player with more than nine million chips, with a stack of 9,799,062 heading into Day 3.
They are joined in the top ten by, among others, online legend "ShipitFTW911" (6,761,987) and super high roller regular Kayhan "KayhanMok" Mokri(6,431,244), who comes fresh off a victory in the €100,000 Super High Roller at EPT Barcelona.
Top Ten Chip Counts at the End of Day 2
| Place | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ivan "ILS007" Stokes | United Kingdom | 16,606,251 | 208 |
| 2 | Niklas "Lena900" Astedt | Sweden | 9,996,387 | 125 |
| 3 | Jamil "Jamil11" Wakil | Canada | 9,799,062 | 122 |
| 4 | "BigCsabi" | Hungary | 7,850,116 | 98 |
| 5 | "Thurpan" | United Kingdom | 7,563,718 | 95 |
| 6 | "ShipitFTW911" | Sweden | 6,761,987 | 85 |
| 7 | Kayhan "KayhanMok" Mokri | Norway | 6,341,244 | 79 |
| 8 | "ContraSpemSper0" | Ukraine | 4,713,328 | 59 |
| 9 | Juan "xPastorcitox" Pastor | Argentina | 4,662,556 | 58 |
| 10 | "PAX176" | Poland | 4,319,200 | 54 |
Others that found their way into Day 3 with a lesser stack include, among others, PokerStars Ambassador Sam "SamSquid" Grafton (2,721,816), who is the only one of his kind remaining, Chris "ImDaNuts" Oliver (3,270,792), Daniel "Oxata" Dvoress (2,816,829), and Andras "probirs" Nemeth (2,232,651).
Summary of Day 2
However, with a large supply of fresh starting stacks at the beginning of Day 2, there was a bust-out bonanza to be had before the players were even in reach of the money. Among the very early eliminations were the likes of Benny "RunGodlike” Glaser, Leon "RUMUKULUS" Sturm, Rui "RuiNF" Ferreira, Justin "ZeeJustin" Bonomo, and Martin “M.nosbocaJ” Jacobson. PokerStars Ambassadors Lex "L. Veldhuis" Veldhuis, Parker "tonkaaaa" Talbot, and Laurie "LaliTournier" Tournier all failed to make the top 100 as well.
Closer to the money, Fedor "CrownUpGuy" Holz, Georgi "milennial" Sandev, Linus "LLinusLLove" Loeliger, and Conor "1_conor_b_1" Beresford were felted, but it was Bulgaria’s "nikolai4o0o0" who was bestowed with the dubious honor of being the last player to leave without a cash.
Once in the money, Connor "blanconegro" Drinan, Sam "Str8$$$Homey" Greenwood, Simon "C. Darwin2" Mattsson, Felipe "ketzerfelipe" Ketzer, and Juan "Malaka$tyle" Pardo were among the ones that picked up the $21,342 mincash, while Pokerstars’ Rafael "GM_VALTER" Moraes, Yuri "theNERDguy" Dzivielevski, and Dominik "Bounatirou" Nitsche made the first payjump before the day ended with the two unplanned eliminations of Christoph "26071985" Vogelsang and "Renatbog97" to end the day with 38 players, who are now all secured at least $32,632.
They will return on Tuesday, October 3rd at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time to decide who will sit down at the final table of nine. Blinds will resume in Level 27: 40,000/80,000 with an ante of 10,000 and all levels will continue to be 30 minutes in length.
PokerNews will once again be present from start to finish, so be sure to tune in to find out who will be among the nine players battling for the top prize of $1,047,257.