Bell Gardens, Calif. (March 13, 2019) -- From a starting field of 678 entries, just 12 players remain as Day 2 comes to a close. WSOP Bracelet winner Sean Yu (pictured) will bring the big stack into the event's final day. Yu bagged up 4,575,000, giving him more than 114 big blinds at the Day 3 starting level.
Joining Yu in tomorrow's elusive day three is another WSOP Bracelet winner Ben Moon, as well as ring winners Aaron Messmer and Jordan Metlzer.
Here's the full lineup:
- Sean Yu – 4,575,000
- Andrew Moreno – 4,040,000
- Ben Moon – 2,015,000
- Mateus Lessa – 1,975,000
- Jordan Meltzer – 1,930,000
- Nathan Arteaga – 1,190,000
- Scott Vener – 1,185,000
- Ralph Wong – 955,000
- Aaron Messmer – 860,000
- Mark Babekov – 765,000
- Bobby Suer – 515,000
- Zachary Gruneberg – 435,000
The day began with Glen Cressman sitting atop the counts. Cressman parlayed his big stack into a 32nd place finish worth $4,805. Cressman was eliminated when he lost a battle of the blinds with Ace Ten against Joe Keuther's pocket kings.
The list of those who fell during Day 2 is a long one littered with bracelet winners, ring winners, and other tournament poker standouts. Bracelet winners that failed to advance to the elusive Day 3 are Anthony Marquez, Ankush Mandavia, Mohsin Charania, Mike Wang, Kevin Eyster, Phil Laak, Ben Yu, Ben Keeline, and Nipun Java.
The bubble arrived during the third level of the day, with Duey Doung earning the unfortunate title of Bubble Boy. Duong open shoved with pocket nines and ran into Scott Stewats pocket queens. His departure left the 72 remaining players in the money.
Some of those who cashed but did not last the night include Allen Kessler, Stephen Song, Ekrem Bozkurt, Paul Camby, Brian Schaniel, Cristiano Ferrari, Frank Mariani, Nick Grippo, Joe Kuether, and Bill Klein.
The twelve players who did survive the long day will return to action on Wednesday to play down to a winner. Blinds will be 20,000/40,000 with a 40,000 ante when play resumes, putting the average stack at a lofty 41 big blinds.
Everyone left is guaranteed to earn at least $15,840, but there's much more to play for than that. The winner will collect the series' most desirable ring and the top payout of $210,585. On top of that, the tournament’s winner earns a berth in the prestigious Global Casino Championship where they’ll compete for a WSOP bracelet.
Day 3 begins at 1:00 PM local time.