RICK SALOMON LEADS AND MONEY BUBBLE LOOMS AFTER TWO DAYS OF BIG ONE PLAY
What a difference a day can make, especially in tournament poker. When Day 2 of the $1 million Big One for One Drop began, all eyes were on the two players who finished 1-2 in the event in 2012, Sam Trickett and Antonio Esfandiari. Trickett was chip leader, Esfandiari well above average, and buzz was already swirling about repeat final table appearances.

After a long day of action at the tables though, neither Trickett nor Esfandiari are bagging up chips. In fact, none of the players who cashed last year will be doing so again this year. The final table is guaranteed to feature a lot of new faces for the One Drop event, but they are very familiar faces to poker fans.

Day 2 of the action in this tournament began with 31 hopefuls still in the running. The plan was to play until the eight-handed final table was set, but after a long stretch with few eliminations once the field got to 16, they eventually had to bag up with nine remaining on the exact bubble of both the money and the televised final table.

Leading the way heading into the final day of action is a face familiar to fans of Hollywood gossip magazines, film producer Rick Salomon. He certainly had a flair for the dramatic, as he ascended to the top of the counts thanks to a massive bluff against German pro Chirstoph Volgesang. Not only did Salomon pull off the bluff, he showed it afterwards.

Salomon leads the final nine with 23,575,000, but Tobias Reinkemeier and Daniel Colman are right on his heels with just less than 23 million each. Reigning WSOP Player of the Year Daniel Negreanu is the other big stack with 20.7 million chips, while the remaining five players are all sitting on less than 10 million each.

The unofficial final table ended up being divided into those with chips and those without thanks to a crazy day of action that saw a number of players fall by the wayside besides just Trickett and Esfandiari. The most memorable bustout of the day had to belong to satellite qualifier Connor Drinan, who got it all-in with pocket aces against amateur Cary Katz’s pocket aces only to have Katz river a flush to take the pot.

Others who saw their One Drop dreams dashed today include Greg Merson, Erik Seidel, Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Doug Polk, Jean-Robert Bellande, Gabe Kaplan, Erick Lindgren, Tony Gregg, and Guy Laliberte.

One more player will join that list of players who participated but did not cash, but we will have to wait until Tuesday to find out just who it will be. During the final two hours or so of play Monday night, the field lost just one player, Esfandiari, who exited empty-handed in 10th place.

Day 3 will resume at 3pm PT on Tuesday and continue until we have a new champion. Live updates from the event are available on WSOP.com.

Here are the chip counts and seat assignments for the start of Day 3:

Seat 1: Cary Katz – 9,125,000
Seat 2: Rick Salomon – 23,575,00
Seat 3: Christoph Vogelsang – 7,075,000
Seat 4: Daniel Colman – 22,625,000
Seat 5: Tom Hall – 7,775,000
Seat 6: Tobias Reinkemeier – 22,825,000
Seat 7: Daniel Negreanu – 20,700,000
Seat 8: Paul Newey – 4,050,000
Seat 9: Scott Seiver – 8,250,000