Day 2 of the Foxwoods Circuit Main Event was a long and winding road full of surprises as we played from a field of more than 170 to just 11 players vying for the victory. Big stacks fell by the wayside early, contenders emerged out of the blue and, often, just as quickly exited. There were some memorable moments, some crazy calls, and some New England poker regs making a run at Circuit notoriety.
When play began, Ray Haddad was leading the way with over 300,000. By the first break two hours later, Haddad was on the rail. That was what kind of day it was. Six-time ring winner Ari Engel began play with a top five stack, but busted out well before the money bubble. Others who failed to cash on day 2 were Vinny Pahuja, bracelet winner Jon Aguiar, John DiBella, Maurice Hawkins, and John Myung.
With a grand total of 591 entries in this season’s event, this tournament boasted a prize pool of $888,568 with a $186,600 payday awaiting our eventual champion. The top 63 players in the event each earned a payday, with everyone who made the money guaranteed at least $2,932.
The money bubble was a surprisingly brief affair, bursting after just a couple of hands of hand-for-hand play. Notables who made the money, but missed out on Day 3 include Randal Sklar (49th), Aaron Massey (29th), ring winner Grant Lang (24th), bracelet winner Leo Wolpert (18th), and Raj Patel (13th).
Wes Wyvill leads the way as we head into Day 3 with 2,741,000. Not only is he the only player with more than 2 million chips, he is also one of the five players who elected to re-enter at the start of today, which means he has increased the 20,000 chips he started the day with more than 100 fold.
Next in the counts is Keith Donovan, who claims he sucked out like a champ throughout the day, including hitting a two-outer two spots away from the bubble to stay alive and double up. He ended Day 2 with 1,449,000. John Ting, Joe Morneau,who spent much of the day atop the leaderboard, and Frank Pezzullo are also in seven-figure territory.
Ting is chasing more than just a final table too, as he needs to advance just two more spots in order to take the Casino Champion points lead away from Ryan Methia.
Jason Strasser, Bryan Leskowitz, and four others will also be back in action tomorrow. Here is a look at the official chip counts:
1. Wes Wyvill - 2,741,000
2. Keith Donovan - 1,449,000 3. John Ting - 1,179,000 4. Joe Morneau - 1,144,000 5. Frank Pezzullo - 1,125,000 6. Jason Strasser 959,000 7. Mike Guadano - 926,000 8. Scott Baker - 919,000 9. James Rubin - 650,000 10. Forrest Mansur - 370,000 11. Bryan Leskowitz - 365,000
Day 3 play resumes at 12pm ET on Monday and continues until we have a winner. As usual, all of the action will be available on the live updates page of WSOP.com.