Ruberto Leads Near Money Bubble
Tony Ruberto leads the final 243 players in Event #56: $2,500 No-Limit Hold'em here at the 2013 World Series of Poker in the Rio. He bagged 178,200 in chips when Level 11 ended last night, and Florens Feenstra (171,700), Bob Panitch (150,700), Nicolas Levi (148,300) and AJ Bertenshaw (147,800) round out the top five.
The starting field of 1,736 is more than 100 more than last year, and the winner will be taking home $730,756 and a gold bracelet for first place. Before we can crown a winner, we first need to get into the money, and that should happen fairly early on today; 198 of the remaining 243 will get paid. Once that happens, we'll likely see a flurry of shorter stacks busting out, and the late-game direction of the tournament should begin to come into focus.
Notable runners remaining include Mark Teltscher (113,100), Jonathan Tamayo (91,900), Josh Arieh (79,800), Erik Seidel (58,000), Matt Marafioti (51,000), Dan Smith (46,400), Jesse Sylvia (41,000), and Amit Makhija (37,000).
While you are waiting for action to begin, here is Kristy Arnett with your July 2nd Update.