Bursting the Money Bubble and Onward to the Final Table Here on Day 2!
What began with 810 players in the 2014 World Series of Poker Event #15: $3,000 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold'em is now down to 144, of which 90 will earn a piece of the $2,211,300 prize pool. Today those players will return to the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino for 10 more one-hour levels of play, and it shouldn't take but a few levels to reach the money. From there the players will look to play down to the final table, or at least as close as they can get.
Right now the man best positioned to make a run at the $508,640 first-place prize is two-time gold bracelet winner Brandon Cantu, who won a massive pot in the penultimate hand of Day 1 to vault into the chip lead. Cantu has already made one final table this summer in the $1,500 razz event, and he's looking to make it two with his monster stack of 244,700. To put that in perspective, the next closest player is Barry Hutter with 201,100. Hutter eliminated 2012 WSOP Main Event champ Greg Merson in a big pot late on Day 1, which is where he obtained a big portion of his chips.
Those two are the only players over 200K, but that doesn't mean they're the only ones sitting pretty. Others with a healthy stack are Andreas Hoivold (195,200), Nick Guagenti (178,100), Davidi Kitai (141,900), Byron Kaverman (133,600), and Chris Hunichen (128,700).
All of those players are able to enjoy the comfort and confidence that come with a big stack, but that doesn't mean they have it easy. On the contrary, some heavy hitters are lurking including Michael Mizrachi (100,700), Will Failla (73,000), Phil Hellmuth (59,400), Todd Terry (52,000), Andrew Lichtenberger (40,300), Paul Volpe (24,800), and Jonathan Duhamel (22,200). Volpe is fresh off his bracelet win in the $10K 2-7 NL event (he literally jumped into Event #15 after completing interviews) and is looking for even more poker success.
Day 2 will get underway at 2 p.m., which is about an hour from now. The [I]PokerNews[I/] Live Reporting will be bringing you all the action, so be sure to stay tuned.