The $1,600 buy-in, $3.5 million guarantee MSPT Venetian Main Event attracted 2,887 runners over three flights, and only 508 (46 Day 1A, 152 Day 1B, 310 Day 1C) bagged for Day 2 action. After ten levels of play, just 41 players remain, with Ryan Yu out in front with a stack of 6,635,000. The Canadian poker pro will be looking to best his previous best cash of $239,023 as the runner-up in February’s WPT Fallsview Poker Classic in Niagara Falls with a victory in this event, worth $588,249!
MSPT Champs Rich Alsup (2,530,000), Greg Himmelbrand (1,540,000), and Ahmed Taleb (1,345,000) all found a bag today, and some of those joining them include Felix Bleiker (4,000,000), Sam De Silva (2,850,000), Jonathan Karamalikis (2,825,000), Jared Griener (1,805,000), John Dolan (1,250,000), and Joseph Serock (850,000).
With 297 players getting paid, 211 players left empty-handed. Among those to fall short of a cash were WSOPE Main Event champion Annette Obrestad, Connor Drinan, 12-time WSOP Circuit Ring winner Valentin Vornicu, Jessica Dawley, Jay Philips, Jim “Mr_BigQueso” Collopy, Matt Affleck, Nacho Barbero, and two players who busted on the first hand of hand-for-hand play on the bubble, Mounim Kaddouri and Yang Zhang.
Once the bubble burst, a host of players hit the rail with a cash, including start of the day short stack Kevin Boesel (48th - $9,529) and start of the day chip leader Andrew Hanna (49th - $9,529), WSOP November Niner Jeremy Ausmus (57th - $8,700), WPT champ Darryl Fish (61st - $8,700), “Mad” Marvin Rettenmaier (64th - $8,079), two-time WSOP Bracelet winner Elio Fox (73rd - $7,457), WPT champ Phil Laak (81st - $7,457) Ebony Kenney (90th - $6,836), WSOP Bracelet winner John Reading (104th - $5,800), MSPT Hall of Famer Kou Vang (105th - $5,800), MSPT $5,000 Venetian Main Event third-place finisher Kahle Burns (127th - $5,800), 2010 WSOP Main Event third-place finisher Joseph Cheong (148th - $5,179) 2011 WSOP Main Event runner-up Martin Staszko (189th - $4,557), current Kimo Sabe Mezcal POY leader Aaron Johnson (226th - $3,936), Will “The Thrill” Failla (247th - $3,936), MSPT $5,000 Venetian Main Event runner-up Kristen Bicknell (266th - $3,729), partypoker Team Pro Natalia Breviglieri (273rd - $3,729) and WSOP November Niners Vojtech Ruzicka (276th - $3,729) and Dan Sindelar (294th - $3,729).
Day 3 will kick off at 1 P.M. local time on Friday and play down to a winner. Not only will we capture the action here in the live updates, we will be live streaming the action at the final table on our RFID table complete with hole cards and commentary. Be sure to tune in and catch all the action as the remaining 41 players take aim at the $588,249 first-place prize!