Welcome to Day 2 of Event #23: $1,500 Eight Game Mix
The first ten levels are in the books as the Event #23: $1,500 Eight Game Mix now moves on to the mid-stage of the tournament. With just over a third left from the starting field of a record 612 entries, the tournament will see the bubble burst today.
The 225 runners who reported advancing stacks are set to come back at 2 p.m. local time, each of them eyeing to make it among the top 92 finishers who will nab a WSOP cash. Some of them are overwhelmingly experienced in that—Roland Israelashvili, Allen Kessler, Phil Hellmuth, and Chris Ferguson have each done it more than a hundred times.
It's too early to discuss potential bracelet candidates (and the $177,294 prize that comes along with the gold) but as for the provisional standings, Aleksandr Gofman is currently pacing the field. Gofman amassed 95,800 chips yesterday and that put him significantly ahead of his nearest competitors: Mihails Morozovs (77,100), Michael Mizrachi (74,500) and John "Miami" Cernuto (74,000).
While there was no sign of Phil Ivey and Paul Volpe, the first two champions of the $1,500 8-Game, in the field, Ron Ware (45,100) and Philip Long (26,000) are still in contention with a chance to pair their respective bracelets from this very event.
Player of the Year Award hunters Shaun Deeb and Dan Zack also survived and they will be looking to add more points to the leaderboard.
A fast-paced start to Day 2 can be expected with 1,000/2,000 limits coming up, leaving the average stack below 14 big bets. So come back at 2 p.m. for live updates as PokerNews will be again on the ground again to map the tournament progress.