Saturday, July 11, 2015 4:43 PM Local Time
Joe McKeehen in Front After Two Levels
Level 17 concludes, and the players are taking a 20-minute break. Of the 661 players who started the day, 441 survived the first two levels. Everyone left is guaranteed at least $21,786.
Michael Shanahan put his name on the map during the first level of the day, building a tower of 1.66 million chips to take the overall chip lead. Shanahan’s second level went nearly as well as the first, finishing with 1.776 million. Shanahan is the only player who's crested 2 million chips so far, though he took a big hit against Michael Butteroni right at the tail end of the level to drop into second place overall.
Shanahan and Butteroni are both inside the top five, while Joe McKeehen (pictured below), who began the day in second place, has pipped into the overall lead. According to another player, it was pocket aces against ace-four on an ace-eight-four flop that gave McKeehen the late surge.
Here are the top five stacks in the room:
Joe McKeehen - 1,908,000
Michael Shanahan - 1,776,000
Charles Chattha - 1,500,000
Federico Butteroni - 1,445,000
Brian Hastings - 1,338,000
As the field size continues to shrink, the number of players with seven-figure stacks continues to grow. There were only three of them to start the day, but that number has swollen to more than a dozen through two levels of Day 4. Hastings was one of the lucky trio to start the day with more than a million chips, and his stack has only moved up so far. Hastings ended the level with 1,338,000 chips. Matthias De Meulder also reached the million-chip milestone in the last few minutes of the last level, playing a big pot with top pair on a queen-high board.
There are four former Main Event champions still alive, too. Phil Hellmuth (pictured above) has been climbing through the pack steadily today, ending the level with 326,000. Jim Bechtel (855,000), Joe Hachem (222,000), and Ryan Riess (116,000) are also still in the hunt for a second-career Main Event title. There are a handful of November Niners still looking to do it again, too. Matt Jarvis (618,000), Marc-Etienne McLaughlin (569,000), John Racener (539,000), Anton Makiievskyi (390,000), and Scott Montgomery (573,000) all survived the level.
While the leaders continue to assert themselves, a number of familiar faces were spotted taking a walk to the payout desk, too. At age 94, William Wachter (pictured above) was the oldest player in the Main Event, and he, “didn’t come here to lose,” as he said during the shuffle up and deal ceremonies. Wachter is the oldest player ever to cash in the Main Event too, but his run ended with a 524th-place finish, good for $19,500.
Jake Schindler Mukul Pahuja, Chanracy Khun, Raul Mestre, David Sands, Randal Flowers, Andy Spears, Justin Pechie, Marco Liesy were also eliminated during the second level of the day, as were former November Niners Andoni Larrabe and JC Tran.
McKeehen leads the survivors into Level 18, and play resumes in 20 minutes.