Day 2ab Gets Underway at 11 a.m.
After three World Series of Poker Main Event starting flights and thousands of players filing into the Rio, Day 2 action get underway today with those who advanced from Day 1A and 1B returning for five more levels of play.
The first flight brought in 795 players with 576 surviving, making it the biggest Day 1a since 2013. That was followed up by an overflow crowd of 2,164 on Day 1b, with 1,643 players bagging at night's end. That made for a total field of 2,959 in the first two flights of play. 2,219 of them return to the Rio for Day 2ab at 11 a.m.
| Level | Small Blind | Big Blind | Ante |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 300 | 600 | 100 |
| 20-minute break | |||
| 7 | 400 | 800 | 100 |
| 20-minute break | |||
| 8 | 500 | 1,000 | 100 |
| 20-minute break | |||
| 9 | 600 | 1,200 | 200 |
| 90-minute break | |||
| 10 | 800 | 1,600 | 200 |
The 90-minute dinner break should be around 8 p.m. local time. Play should be done for the day around 11:30 p.m. The money will not be reached today; that happens towards the end of Day 3 usually.
The numbers for the first two flights have been up compared to recent years, as was Monday’s flight 1c. Day 1c brought a massive 4,262 players to the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, 3,300 of them advanced to Day 2c on Wednesday at noon. That makes for a grand total of 7,221 players, 5,519 who survived Day 1.
All in all, this year’s Main Event is the third-largest in history (only topped in 2006 and 2010) and the prize pool sits at almost $68 million. First place is guaranteed $8,150,000, and the total places paid is 1,084 with a min-cash of $15,000.
Morten Mortensen was the chip leader in the 1a field with 279,000 chips. Mortensen has almost $1.2 million in lifetime tournament winnings including four cashes at the WSOP for $297,481. Others with big stacks include Sam Grafton (231,600), Griffin Abel (226,000), Jonathan Little (210,300), and David Eldridge (207,000).
Defending champ Qui Nguyen advanced with 96,700 chips and 2014 champ Martin Jacobson bagged up 36,800. Other notables still remaining include Barny Boatman (150,000), Alex Foxen (140,000), Faraz Jaka (119,800), Donnacha O'Dea (111,000), Barry Shulman (106,700), Richard Seymour (105,000), Jon Turner (103,900), Mike Matusow (99,000), Matthew Ashton (93,500), and Hoyt Corkins (84,300).
Taking command in the 1b field was Argentina’s Richard Dubini (254,500), who has a bit over $1 million in lifetime tournament winnings including a win in 2014 in the Brazilian Series Of Poker for $126,397. Other big stacks continuing to a second day of action were Alan Schein (229,800), Brandon Meyers (215,700), Tobias Ziegler (215,300), Brandon Adams (205,000), and 2005 WSOP Main Event third-place finisher Tex Barch (200,000).
Other notables remaining from 2b include: Kenny Hallaert (168,700), Jordan Morgan (166,300), Fabrice Soulier (160,300), Hasan Habib (154,100), Barry Greenstein (146,800), Nick Schulman (131,200), Adrian Mateos (129,000), Scott Seiver (123,900), Andy Frankenberger (116,400), Jeff Shulman (112,600), Patrick Mahoney (109,200), Layne Flack (107,000), and Terrence Chan (101,800).
Play is scheduled to reach the final table on Day 7 (Monday, July 17). Days 8-10 will then resume and be played on July 20-22 to reach a winner – all played out live in front of ESPN’s cameras. Tuesday’s action will be on PokerGO from 11:30 through 4:30. The show switches to ESPN from 4:30-8 p.m. and again on PokerGO for the last half hour (8:00-8:30 p/m.). Here is a look at the payouts for the final table:
| 1st | $8,150,000 |
| 2nd | $4,700,000 |
| 3rd | $3,500,000 |
| 4th | $2,600,000 |
| 5th | $2,000,000 |
| 6th | $1,675,000 |
| 7th | $1,425,000 |
| 8th | $1,200,000 |
| 9th | $1,000,000 |
Here's the complete Day 2ab seat draw:
, Jesper Hougaard bet 2,400 and George Mattia was the only caller. Both players checked the 
turn and Hougaard also checked the 
river. Mattia bet 7,000 and Hougaard called, then mucked when he was shown 
for the nut straight.
and the kicker played to eliminate Hougaard.
turn and 
river were of no help and Shahade was eliminated in the first level of the day. Lindsey joined the big stacks on his table that also include Adam Hsu and Gjergj Sinishtaj.
. The small blind checked to Polk who bet 2,000 and the player called. 
river, the small blind moved all in with a stack of just a bit over 20,000. Polk snap called. 
while the small blind showed just 
for king high. 
to spike a five on the flop and leave Jacobson empty-handed.
on a 
flop against Ronnie Brown's 
and Grafton won a huge pot through Brown.
. The board read 
with roughly 24,000 in the middle, Sam Grafton bet out 12,100 from the button following a check from Doug Polk in the small blind.