Friedman Tops Final 19; Ivey Lurking
Day 2 of Event 15: $5,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Split 8-or-Better has wrapped up after 10 levels of play today. When the day began, Chris Tryba topped the 137 players that remained from the starting field of 212. At the end of the night, just 19 were left to bag and tag for Day 3.
Tryba's day didn't go well at all. He just never seemed to be the one pulling in a pot, or even half of a pot at that. After several hours of what he deemed as torture, Tryba was finally eliminated well short of the money.
Day 2 was also the bubble day, which meant one unlucky soul would have to be deemed the tournament "bubble boy." That player was none other than well known professional Joe Tehan, who busted in 25th place. Other notables to finish outside of the money included Daniel Negreanu, Jason Mercier and the Godfather of Poker himself, Mr. Doyle Brunson.
Brunson made his return to the World Series of Poker in this event and had a good showing despite falling short of a cash. He played all of Day 2 with his son, Todd, seated across the table from him and the two seemed to enjoy the time on the felt together. We look forward to seeing Brunson and his cowboy hat at more WSOP events to come in 2012.
Leading the way into Day 3 is Adam Friedman. He bagged up 323,500 in chips and only has John Monnette joining him in the 300,000 club. Most of you will most likely remember Friedman from back in 2005 when he ran deep in the WSOP Main Event. Friedman was the player who famously lost a huge hand with flush over flush in the tournament that caused him to visibly break down on ESPN (see the 3:25 mark of this video). That year, Friedman's 43rd-place finish in the Main Event grabbed him $235,390. Friedman has been a regular at the WSOP each year since his deep run, locking up five more cashes, including four that have come from games other than No-Limit Hold'em.
Friedman will be joined by plenty of big guns for Day 3. You've got Phil Ivey and Phil Hellmuth with virtually the same amount of chips at 234,000 and 233,000, respectively. Then you've got Bryn Kenney, Todd Brunson, Marco Johnson and Eli Elezra all still in the mix. One can't forget about Allen Bari either, who will be bringing up the rear with the short stack of 20,000.
Day 3 is scheduled to commence at 2:00 PM on Friday in the Amazon Room of the Rio in Las Vegas. If you're in the area, stop on in to sweat the action, but if you're not, PokerNews will be your best option for all the live coverage hands down. We'll see you tomorrow and until then, goodnight from Las Vegas!