Benyamine Leads 78 Advancing Players; Ivey, Hellmuth & Mizrachi Fall
Day 2 of the 2013 World Series of Poker Event #55: The $50,000 Poker Players' Championship saw nine players late register to bring the total field up to 132 entrants—up 24 from the year prior—and create a prize pool of $6,336,000, of which $1,774,089 is reserved for the winner. After five more levels of play, the man best positioned out of the remaining 78 players is David Benyamine, who bagged up the chip lead with 729,000.
One man who is no longer in contention for the top prize is defending champ Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi, who was seeking his third Poker Players' Championship title. Mizrachi's demise came in Level 9 in a round of no-limit hold'em. Fifth street had been dealt, and with about 60,000 in the middle the board read 
. It appeared Cole South had checked and Mizrachi had fired a bet, as the latter had 35,000 sitting out in front of him with only about 25,000 left behind.
South paused for several seconds, then announced he was all in, his stack well exceeding that of Mizrachi. The Grinder sat up and leaned forward, beginning a couple of minutes' worth of consideration of what to do next.
"I got a pretty big hand," he said at one point, with South offering no response. Finally Mizrachi called, asking "full house?" as he did. South let his cards provide the response. He didn't have a full house, but his 
meant he'd made a club flush. Mizrachi slumped a little as he saw a hand that beat the one he was holding. He started to muck face down, then flipped his cards over and ahead where they landed in the middle of the table — 
. With that, the 2010 and 2012 Poker Players' Champion was out.
Others who hit the rail throughout the day were David "ODB" Baker, David "Bakes" Baker, Randy Ohel, Konstantin Puchkov, Phil Ivey, Mike Sexton, Gus Hansen, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Galfond, Daniel Negreanu and Mike Matusow.
While some big names fell, there are still plenty of notables left in the field including Jonathan Duhamel (666,100), Matthew Ashton (635,500), Troy Burkholder (623,000), Jean Gaspard (600,100), Brian Rast (489,500), Shaun Deeb (453,600), Justin Bonomo (343,600), Joe Hachem (326,000), Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier (325,000), Huck Seed (309,400), Erick Lindgren (276,000) and Doyle Brunson (265,000).
Brunson was down to just 40,000 at the start of Level 10, but by the end of it he'd increase that sixfold. That was thanks to doubles through Jennifer Harman and Cole South, with lady luck smiling on the ten-time bracelet winner on the latter double.
Day 3 will begin at at 2 p.m. PDT, and the PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be on hand to bring you all the action and eliminations from another day of action here in Event #55: The $50,000 Poker Players' Championship.