Martin Leads 16 Survivors; Kelly Makes Fourth Day 3 of 2013
![[user101598]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
Day 2 of Event #19: $5,000 Pot-Limit Hold'em is in the books, and leading the 16 remaining players is Jesse Martin. Martin was the only player to bag more than 400,000 chips, sealing up 402,000, and will return for the third and final day looking for his first career World Series of Poker bracelet. In 2012, Martin, who was very fortunate to win a massive pot that eliminated David Paredes, cashed seven times and made the final table of the $5,000 Limit Hold'em Event, finishing fourth for $68,322.
Joining Martin on Day 3 will be a host of notables, including Dan Kelly, John Hennigan, Davidi Kitai, Dimitar Danchev, Dario Minieri, Bertrand Grospellier, and Eugene Katchalov. This marks Kelly's fourth Day 3 of the 2013 WSOP - he made the final table of the $5,000 Eight-Handed Event and the Millionaire Maker, but failed to capture his second career bracelet in both events.
Day 2 started with 77 players, but only 27 would walk away with money. Several players hit the rail quickly, including Noah Schwartz, Nick Jivkov, Robert Mizrachi, and the 2005 WSOP Main Event Champion, Joe Hachem.
Hachem got the rest of his chips in the middle with a red pair of queens against Kitai's black kings. The kings held up, and Hachem passed the Belgian the sugar.
Reaching the bubble was quick and painless, but the bubble itself took ages. Finally, after over an hour and a half, Marco Traniello blinded all the way down to a single T1,000 chip. He won an unorthodox flip against Paul Volpe to double, but was eliminated soon after that by Danchev.
Once the bubble burst, there were eliminations left and right. Nine players exited in less time than it took to actually burst the bubble, including Amit Makhija, Volpe, Vitaly Lunkin, and Ted Lawson.
Two-time bracelet winner Jason Mercier also exited before the two-table redraw, unable to improve his queen-eight suited enough to best JJ Liu's ace-six off.
There was a redraw at 18 players, and with the eliminations of Liu in 18th and John Roveto in 16th, the start of Day 3 will look like this:
| Table | Seat | Player |
|---|---|---|
| 353 | 1 | Dan Kelly |
| 353 | 2 | John Hennigan |
| 353 | 3 | Kevin Vandersmissen |
| 353 | 4 | Matt Marafioti |
| 353 | 5 | Bertrand Grospellier |
| 353 | 6 | --empty |
| 353 | 7 | Cary Katz |
| 353 | 8 | Steven Kelly |
| 353 | 9 | Dario Minieri |
| 359 | 1 | Jesse Martin |
| 359 | 2 | --empty-- |
| 359 | 3 | Kristina Holst |
| 359 | 4 | Dimitar Danchev |
| 359 | 5 | Mark Herm |
| 359 | 6 | Vincent Bartello |
| 359 | 7 | Chris Johnson |
| 359 | 8 | Eugene Katchlov |
| 359 | 9 | Davidi Kitai |
Play will resume tomorrow at 2 p.m. local time, where we will play until a winner is crowned. We hope to see you then.