Deas Leads WinStar Final Table as Men Nguyen Falls Just Short
It took nearly the full 10 levels of play scheduled for Day 2 of WinStar River Poker Series $2,500 Main Event, but a final table was reached just before the night's end, and the last nine players bagged up chips to return for Day 3 to play for $384,100 in first-place prize money.
Tops among the players remaining is Day 1a leader Johnny Deas, who finished Day 2 with 4,725,000 as blinds get set to head to 30,000/60,000/10,000. Others making the final table included Nebraska's Jeff "mrrain" Banghart and short stack Brian Green, who made the final table of the 2016 $111K Big One for One Drop at the World Series of Poker.
| Seat | Player | Stack |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ekrem Bozkurt | 2,435,000 |
| 2 | Ricky Green | 3,880,000 |
| 3 | Jeff Banghart | 2,545,000 |
| 4 | Brian Green | 590,000 |
| 5 | Matthew Bray | 1,945,000 |
| 6 | Will Pengelly | 2,555,000 |
| 7 | Johnny Deas | 4,725,000 |
| 8 | Alan Cummins | 845,000 |
| 9 | Dean Baranowski | 1,100,000 |
There was no bubble to worry about on Day 2 as each of the 98 players who made it through the two Day 1s was in the money. Notables such as Anthony Spinella, Allen Kessler, Mike Wang, Ben Keeline and Alex Greenblatt were some of those busting and getting payouts.
Joe Elpayaa looked like he might run away with things as he built up a big chip lead after coming in atop the counts, but he began fading at the final few tables and wound up busting in 18th running ace-queen into Banghart's ace-king.
Meanwhile, Men "The Master" Nguyen, who brought in the heftiest pedigree with his seven bracelet wins, made miracles happen late. He doubled up at least twice when he was dominated with three outs, once running a backdoor flush with ace-three against ace-king.
Finally, his luck didn't hold up when he let himself blind to where Deas had an easy raise-call with king-jack and outdrew ace-queen, ending Nguyen's run in 14th.
Deas would then get another big elimination when he picked up aces against the ace-king of Kramer Copp to send him out in 11th.
The last nine players return at noon on Tuesday to play down to a winner. There was already some discussion of a chop at the 10-handed final table, so it remains to be seen whether those talks will resume on Day 3 or the tournament will play out in its entirety. Either way, come back to PokerNews to see what happens.