Michael Noori Holds Chip Lead Heading into Day 3 of $10,000 2-7 Triple Draw Championship
Day 2 of Event #44: $10,000 Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw Championship has come to a conclusion with Michael Noori holding the chip lead for the second consecutive day.
Noori maintained his standing near the top of the chip counts for the majority of the day. While he didn't score all that many eliminations, he won several key pots once the field redrew to the final three tables to add to his stack and eventually opened up a sizable chip lead to end the day.
Canadian Christopher Kruk sits second overall with 658,000, while Randy Ohel is third with 602,000.Jason Gray (569,000) and Hanh Tran (423,000) are the only other two players over average chips, while the likes of WSOP bracelet winners Farzad Bonyadi and Calvin Anderson are also still in the hunt. Bonyadi's mother, Farhintaj Bonyadi, won Event #36: $1,000 Super Seniors No-Limit Hold'em earlier this series, and a win for Bonyadi could deliver an unprecedented mother-and-son victory at the 2018 World Series of Poker.
At the beginning of Day 2, the 100-player field had already been reduced to just 41 players, but with registration open until the first card hit the air, a total of nine new faces showed up to take a seat in the tournament. Anderson, John Racener, Tyler Meservy, Jared Talarico, Samuel Touil, Justin Bonomo, Kristijonas Andrulis, Jason Gray, and Phil Ivey all entered play, and with it meant an official prize pool of $1,024,600 would be created that would ensure the final 17 players an in-the-money finish while awaiting the eventual victor would be a coveted WSOP bracelet and the $287,987 first prize.
Once the cards were officially airborne, action would be fast and furious as shallow stacks looked to make a move up the leaderboard. WSOP bracelet winners JC Tran, Mike Wattel, Benny Glaser, Vanessa Selbst, Frank Kassela, Jesse Martin, Chris Vitch, and Eli Elezra were just a handful of the casualties, along with late entrants Racener, Bonomo, and Ivey.
Dinner break was reached with players just a table from the money, and once play resumed, Mike Ross, Brant Hale, Nam Le, Shawn Buchanan, and Luke Schwartz hit the rail. With the tournament now on the bubble, it would take close to an hour before Max Kruse was drawing live to a wheel against Anderson's 
. Unfortunately for Kruse he paired his three and became the tournament bubble boy which was deja vu for the German soccer star as he also bubbled the Event #23: $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw Championship nearly two weeks ago.
With players now guaranteed an in-the-money finish, action continued at a slow rate as everyone was still relatively deep. Jordan Siegel (17th), Todd Brunson (16th), Andrew Kelsall (15th), and Mike Matusow (14th) all were eliminated before play concluded for the night. As was the case on Day 1, Noori ended the day as chipleader after amassing an 870,000 chip stack to lead the remaining 13 players into Day 3.
Day 3 action resumes at 2:00 p.m. (PDT) on Saturday, June 23rd, with the PokerNews live reporting team on the floor to provide continuous live updates until an Event #44 Champion is crowned. So stay tuned to PokerNews.com for the ongoing coverage of Event #44, along with all the updates from the 2018 World Series of Poker!