Madsen Leads 19 into Final Day
They call it the "action game," and so it was no surprise to see the chips flying back and forth at a rapid pace throughout the second day of Event #35: $3,000 Pot-Limit Omaha. Most of them ultimately ended up moving in the direction of Jeff Madsen, who began building a stack mid-afternoon, seized the chip lead after dinner break, and ended Day 2 with the chip lead by a wide margin among the final 19.
A total of 137 returned from the starting field of 640, with the final 72 making the money. The bubble proved a tough one to burst, with hand-for-hand play lasting about 40 minutes. Once in the money, the cashers included Jared Hamby (65th), Tom Schneider (60th), Josh Arieh (58th), Padraig Parkinson (52nd), Jamie Pickering (51st), Steve Landfish (47th), Kevin Iacofano (45th), Jared Bleznick (31st), Andrey Pateychuk (30th), Steve Sung (29th), Phil Hellmuth (26th), Jonathan Duhamel (24th), and Will Failla (23rd).
Madsen, a two-time WSOP bracelet winner, ended Day 2 with a stack of 922,000, nearly 400,000 clear of another two-time bracelet holder, Scott Clements. Ashton Griffin, Jason DeWitt, Jarred Solomon, Mike Sexton, and Christian Harder will also be returning for tomorrow's third and final day of play.
Also coming back tomorrow in third position is yet another bracelet winner in Isaac Hagerling who just picked up his hardware in Event #27: $3,000 No-Limit Hold'em Mixed Max earlier this week. Hagerling pushed up to the top of the counts at the very end of play tonight after winning a big pot versus Clements (see just below).
Players return on Friday at 2 p.m. to see who among the 19 will earn the next WSOP bracelet of 2013. We'll be back then as well to bring you all of the action from start-to-finish.