It's been another full day of poker with 10 levels in the books on Day 2 of the World Series of Poker Circuit Main Event at the Rio in Las Vegas.
The day began with 202 hopefuls but just 23 remain of the 952 entries across two starting flights. Of the 23 remaining players in the Main Event, WSOP champion Jared Jaffee leads the way with 2,360,000 chips. He is closely followed by Roger Campbell with 2,325,000 chips and Dan Park rounds out the top three with 2,075,000.
Jaffee got tangled in a big three-way all-in and was on the right side of it after he called Javier Zarco's short-stack shove with aces and saw Michael Song re-shove over the top. Jaffee snap-called and didn't even have a sweat, eliminating Zarco and doubling through Song to take a massive chip lead.
Jaffee and Kyle Cartwright are the only two bracelet winners left in the field, each with one. Jaffee seeks to win his second Circuit ring while Cartwright looks to win his ninth.
Almost half of the field is peppered with ring winners. Cartwright has the most with eight, followed by Steven Snyder with three. Nick Pupillo, Jarod Minghini and Sohale Khalili all have two rings each, followed by Jaffee, Robert Kuhn, Terry Fleischer, Mike Pearson, and Viet Vo with one ring each.
Here is a look at the top 10 chip counts going into Day 3:
1. Jared Jaffee - 2,360,000 (47 bb)
2. Roger Campbell - 2,325,000 (46 bb)
3. Dan Park - 2,075,000 (41 bb)
4. Kent Lundmark - 2,035,000 (40 bb)
5. Nick Pupillo - 1,925,000 (38 bb)
6. Barbara Sargent - 1,650,000 (33 bb)
7. Colton Blomberg - 1,500,000 (30 bb)
8. Peter Lockwood - 1,490,000 (29 bb)
9. Robert Kuhn - 1,430,000 (28 bb)
10. Terry Fleischer - 1,225,000 (24 bb)
A full breakdown of chip counts and the seating assignments are available here.
A total of 99 players were guaranteed to make the money today, and that was reached well into the fourth level of the day. Six-time WSOP bracelet winner Layne Flack was the one to burst the bubble after he opened with queen-jack suited and cracked his opponent's aces to send everyone into the money. All 99 players guaranteed themselves $2,957 and a shot at the top prize of $274,030.
Once the money bubble burst, players began dropping like flies. Defending champion Kevin Iacofano was the first to go, and throughout the day was joined on the rail by the likes of Upeshka De Silva, Eric Baldwin, Dan O'Brien, Robert Hankins, Tim Reilly, Dylan Wilkerson, Javier Zarco, Jesse Sylvia, Eric Wasylenko, Sokchheka Pho, Kevin Gerhart, Simon Deadman, Layne Flack, and Robert Georato. All of these players made the money but fell short of Day 3. All results can be found under the Results Tab.
While many familiar faces made it into the money, those who were unlucky enough to hit the rail before the bubble burst included Phil Hellmuth, Matt Berkey, Ben Zamani, Ryan Riess, Ryan Phan, Jasthi Kumar, Ali Imsirovic, Jared Griener, Will Givens, Tony Dunst and Joseph Cheong.
Day 3 will be the last day of the Circuit series at the Rio and will see the Main Event play down to a winner. Blinds go up to 25,000/50,000 with a 50,000 big blind ante in Level 26.
The Main Event starts back up at 1:00 p.m. local time and will crown a champion, looking to take the top prize of $274,030, the coveted Main Event diamond Circuit ring and a free seat into the 2019 Global Casino Championship.
Stay locked in on WSOP.com for live updates throughout the day.
Results
Prize Pool
Day 3 Chip Counts