Heroux Leads Final 10 Players; Duhamel Still In the Hunt
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Out of the 2,419 entries that took to the felt in Event #19: $565 Pot-Limit Omaha, just 100 returned for Day 2 action, and only 10 bagged chips at the conclusion of play. They'll return for Day 3 action Sunday, 10 June, at 2pm local time at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino and will play until a champion is crowned. The eventual winner will score a $181,790 payday in addition to the coveted gold bracelet.
Canadian Maxime Heroux is presently leading the way with 2,430,000. Heroux already had a strong stack when the field redrew at 27 players and continued to build and was responsible for three late-stage eliminations.
Heroux is joined by a couple of big names: 2010 Main Event Champion Jonathan Duhamel (1,570,000) and fan favorite Craig Varnell (1,950,000). Varnell was one of the big stacks to start the day, and although he suffered a setback or two, his stack steadily trended upward throughout the ten levels of Day 2 play.
Duhamel took a more modest stack out of the bag and won several key pots once the field had narrowed substantially; like Heroux, he also stacked three players after the redraw. Here's a look at the unofficial final table:
| Room | Table | Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | 423 | 1 | Maxime Heroux | Canada | 2,430,000 | 41 |
| Amazon | 423 | 2 | Seth Zimmerman | United States | 920,000 | 15 |
| Amazon | 423 | 3 | Christopher Trang | United States | 1,280,000 | 21 |
| Amazon | 423 | 4 | Craig Varnell | United States | 1,950,000 | 33 |
| Amazon | 423 | 5 | Ilian Li | United States | 1,080,000 | 18 |
| Amazon | 423 | 6 | Conway Frankenheimer | United States | 820,000 | 14 |
| Amazon | 423 | 7 | Omar Mehmood | United States | 655,000 | 11 |
| Amazon | 423 | 8 | Jonathan Duhamel | Canada | 1,570,000 | 26 |
| Amazon | 423 | 9 | Shaome Yang | United States | 735,000 | 12 |
| Amazon | 423 | 10 | Jason Lipiner | United States | 645,000 | 11 |
It didn't take long for chips to start flying around once Day 2 action had begun. Several notable names hit the rail early, including bracelet winner James Obst (99th - $2,019), JC Tran (95th - $2,019), three-time bracelet winner Dutch Boyd (79th - $2,397), and Jesse Yaginuma (68th - $2,675).
Ryan Laplante, who won this event in its 2016, made a valiant effort at securing the title once more, but ultimately departed in 20th place. He took home $5,830 for his efforts in this year's iteration.
Check back here for coverage of the final day of this event and throughout the 2018 World Series of Poker presented by the PokerNews Live Reporting Team