Tao of Poker

WSOP Main Event Day 2B

Last night ended early with Jon Lane as the Day 2A chipleader with 405K.

WSOP Quick Links:
Flipchip's WSOP Photos
PokerStars Blog
Fox Sports
Wicked Chops Poker
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Notable pros who survived Day 2A included: Allen Cunningham, Jeff Lisandro, Jason Strasser, Matthew Maroon, Ted Lawson, David Chiu, Eric Sonstegard, Humberto Brenes, David "The Dragon" Pham, Carlos Mortensen, Mark Vos, Tony Ma, Annie Duke, Billy Baxter, Hoyt Corkins, David Grey, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, Layne Flack, Casey Kastle, Phil Ivey, and Tex Barch.

Bloggers Tuscaloosa Johnny and Ryan K. made it to Day 3.

1,637 players started on Monday's Day 2A. 1,736 will play today. We'll play 4.5 levels. Payouts were released and first place will win $12 million.

2006 WSOP Payout List:
1 - $12,000,000
2 - $6,102,499
3 - $4,123,310
4 - $3,628,513
5 - $3,216,182
6 - $2,803,851
7 - $2,391,520
8 - $1,979,189
9 - $1,566,858

10-12 - $1,154,527
13-15 - $907,128
16-18 - $659,730
19-27 - $494,797
28-36 - $329,865
37-45 - $247,399
46-54 - $164,932
55-63 - $123,699
64-72 - $90,713
73-81 - $65,973

82-126 - $51,129
127-189 - $47,006
190-252 - $42,882
253-315 - $38,759
316-378 - $34,636
379-441 - $30,512
442-504 - $26,389
505-567 - $22,266
568-621 - $20,617
622-666 - $19,050
667-720 - $17,730
721-774 - $16,493
775-819 - $15,504
820-873 - $14,597

End of Day 2A Top 10 Chips (courtesy of PokerWire):
1 Jon Lane $405,000
2 Ken Jacobs $395,000
3 Jason Strasser $330,000
4 Michael Lynn $290,000
4 Paul Wasicka $290,000
4 Matt Woodward $290,000
7 Joe Fuhriman $280,000
8 Justin Holmes $235,000
8 James Crowshaw $235,000
10 Matthew Maroon $225,000

Starting 2B Top 10 in Chips:
1. Hung Tran $177,475
2. Stephen Grasostri $142,925
3. Richard Gryko $128,575
4. Adam Jones $125,525
5. Daryn Firicano $121,225
6. William Nairh $116,100
7. Pelletier Daniel $107,850
8. Jonathan Carlson $106,375
9. Charlie Sewell $106,175
10. Dario Minieri $103,625

Notable Day 2B Chipcounts:
Darrell "Gigabet" Dicken $95,025
Joe Hachem $86,950
Daniel Negreanu $85,800
Ted Forrest $57,325
Robert Varkonyi $55,275
My Main Man Freddy Deeb $54,750
Barny Boatman $51,700
Surinder Sunar $51,525
Greg Raymer $48,500
Joe Cassidy $47,300
Cyndy Violette $46,300
Nam Le $44,300
Bradley Berman $44,300
John Gale $39,100
Tom McEvoy $39,025
Russell "The Muscle" Salzer $36,625
Adam Schoenfeld $36,425
Robert Mizrachi $33,750
Josh Arieh $31,425
Huck Seed $30,450
Al Ardebili $29,500
Peter Costa $29,075
Adam "Stormy" Stormwind 28,700
Melissa Hayden $28,175
J.C. Tran $26,850
Bobby Baldwin $23,500
Alan Goehring $21,375
Kathy Liebert $20,000
Steve Z $18,625
Joanna Krupa $16,100
Paul Wolfe $15,550
Robert Williamson $14,925
Rene "I Put My Penis Inside Celine Dion" Angelil $14,200
Joseph Reitman $13,425
Susie Isaacs $13,350
Patty Gallagher $11,600
Denny Crum $10,850
Lacey Jones $6,650
Sarah Bilney $6,100

I'm going to be keeping an eye on Sraah Bilney, my buddy Stormy, Lacey Jones, and Joanna Krupa. As well as PokerStars guys Tom McEvoy, Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem, and Dario Minieri.

By the way, Harrah's picked up 6% in juice from the total prize pool which is around $5.2 million. For that price, you would have thought they would have paid their dealers better and provided better security.

Players were also wicked pissed at the way Harrah's changed the main event tournament schedule on the fly. The were supposed to stop at 900 players and kept going. Annie Duke had a valid point when she argued that players on Day 2B had an advantage (and could stall) to make the money over those who played on Day 2A. She wanted them to stop way before the money, which they did.

12:04pm.. The suit from Harrah's who appears on those comemrcials telling you not to gamble... well he did the "Shuffle up and deal!"

12:05pm... Cards are in the air.

12:13pm... Just walking through, I could hear dealers shouting, "Seat open! Table 131" as all the short stacks get busted quickly. Lacey Jones is a no-show so far.

12:30pm... Recent Eliminations: Sarah Bilney is out.

12:50pm... Joe K. Update: I just saw Joe K. scoop a pot. He's got over 30K.

1:00pm... Greg Raymer is 4th in chips in his table. He's had ESPN crews following him for most of the day. Three tables down is Joe Hachem's table. And another moble ESPN crew is watching their move. Lacey Jones is still a no show. The freaks at Wicked Chops are on the rail drooling over Joanna Kruppa. Daniel Negreanu is at the featured table.

1:11pm... WSOP Photo Dump: Click on the photos to see an enlarged view.


The Champion


Stormy


Joanna


Al Ardebili (left) and Fossilman


Joe K.


Lynette Chan
1:30pm... Recent Elimination: Former WSOP champion Huck Seed hits the rail.

1:44pm... Greg Raymer slipped to 20.5K in chips. Joe K. has about 31K and Stormy is up to 32K. Lacey Jones is still a no-show and she's getting blinded off. Tom McEvoy is up to 49K.

1:50pm... Recent Elimination: Robert Mizrachi, the brother of the Grinder, is out. Joe Sacha hit the rail when his A-A were cracked by Daniel Negreanu on the feature table.

1:58pm... Bouncin Round the Room: The room is empty because the railbirds are not allowed inside. This makes things a lot more easier to navigate and I can walk through the center aisles instead of using shortcuts through the tournament area, which is slowly filling up with random media reps, most of which I've never seen before. I had a nice chat with PokerWire Amanda who's considering playing in tomroow's event on her only day off. I overheard an interesting conversation between the Milwaukee's Beast Girls.

Chick 1: "When did you graduate high school?"
Chick 2: "2004?"
Chick 1: "04? Oh my god. So did I! We could be like sisters!"

2:15pm... WSOP Photo Dump: Click on the photos to see an enlarged view.


Tao of Poker's Blonde of the Day: PokerWire Amanda


Tom McEvoy


Varkonyi stare down

2:30pm... I just posted something on PokerStars Blog called Greg Raymer: Large Field Guru.

2:45pm... Recent Elimination: Joe Cassidy is out after he lost a race to Frank Kassela.

3:00pm... Greg Raymer is down to 12.5K after taking a hit.

3:45pm... I've been sweating Raymer the last 40 minutes. He's got 12K. He looks frustrated and appears card dead. He's been picking up small pots. Tom McEvoy has 42.5K.

3:46pm... I lost Joe K. I say lost because he's not at his seat. I hope he got moved and is still in.

4:58pm... Recent Eliminations: Joe K., Bard Berman, Bobby Baldwin, Adam Schoenfeld, and Patty Gallagher.

5:00pm... I've been on an assigmnet for PokerStars and have been sweating Raymer for the last two hours. No time to write about hookers and other lame stuff. I have about two minutes to update before I have to run back out to the floor. Greg Raymer is tough as nails. He doubled his stack from 13K to over 27K by picking up small pots. Just before the break he had K-K and won a 7K pot. Raymer is sitting along the rail and he has fans five and six deep. Some are disrespectful enough to ask for autographs while he's playing. There's an ESPN crew (producer, camera guy, and sound guy) and about seven or eight other media reps sweating Raymer and cluttering the aisles.

6:45pm... Recent Elimination: Robert Varkonyi busted along with Haralabos Voulgaris and Monica Reeves.

6:50pm... Recent Elimination: With five minutes to go before the dinner break, Greg Raymer is out. His 8-8 ran into A-A. His opponent flopped an ace and Ryamer rivered an 8 but it was pointless. Raymer jokingly flipped the Ace on the flop over and then picked up the burn card too... which was the case ace.

7:00pm... Players are on a dinner break until 8:30pm

8:30pm... WSOP Photo Dump: Click on the photos to see an enlarged view.


Guess who's in town?


Cowgirls make Otis happy


Nice stack


Just when I'm ready to quit poker, this sucks me back in

9:00pm... Recent Elimination: Aaron "Luckbox" Kanter is out.

9:15pm... Dmitri Nobles, one of the PokerStars qualifiers is the chipleader with 360K. He wants CJ to be his personal chipcounter because whenever he's there, he gtes lucky. They nicknamed The Luckbox... "Lucky Guy."

9:22pm... Joe Hachem has 100K. He won three pots in a row. Tom McEvoy has 58K. Stormy had 42K.

9:45pm... Recent Elimination: Russ Salzer and Robert Williamson III.

10:00pm... Dimitri Nobles moved up to 470K and just took a hit. CJ got harrassed by the ESPN camera crew, who were a collective big dick to him. If you don't know CJ, he's one of the nicest guys in the world and even works in TV himself. Most of the crew is cool, but a few are a idiots. They also made Greg Raymer do his walk out shot after he got busted twice because the first one didn't come out. Raymer is a class act and obliged, even though he was out of the main event.

10:09pm... Bouncin Round the Media Room: A few members of the French film crew are commenting on how they'd like to fuck the Swedish girls here covering all of the Scandi players at the WSOP. Snoopy from Blonde Poker finally arrived. He got shit faced last night and was hungover all day. Otis is on 10% work tilt. I'm on about 43% work tilt and have two deadlines looming.

10:20pm... According to my Irish sources at Antes Up, I heard a rumor that all of the Irish players left in the WSOP were not pleased with how they are treated by ESPN's crew and how CardPlayer ignores them. They made a pact that if any of them won or made a final table, they would boycott any interviews with ESPN and CardPlayer.

10:50pm... Media access go even more restricted. I don't think I can go on the floor anymore for the rest of the day.

11:15pm... Who the fuck is Roma Dario? I don't want to steal Wicked Chops Poker thunder and bust on Card Player, but I have to in this instance. I've been following Dario Minieri since Day 1. He's a PokerStars qualifier from Rome and we've been covering him on PokerStars Blog. He speaks only a little English. CardPlayer didn't even have him on their radar for most of Day 1, even when he had a ton of chips in front of him. On Day 2B, they had his name wrong and listed him as "Roma Dario" up until 10pm. At one point they had both Roma Dario and Dario Minieri on the Top 10 Chips Leaderboard.


Dario who?



11:45pm... Stormy has 38K. Joe Hachem has 140K. My boy Dario has $280K. Tom McEvoy has 59K and chipleader Dimitri Nobles has about 550K.

12:00am... Play is over for the day. Dimitri Nobles finsihed the day with 549,200, which makes him the overall chipleader. Action will resume on Friday at Noon.