Day 2 of WPT at Venetian Sees Ravi Raghavan Leading Remaining 312 Players

By Tim Duckworth

Welcome back to Day 2 of the Season XVII WPT at Venetian $3,500 Main Event from The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. A field of 612 entrants is now down to just 312 players as WPT Champions Club member Ravi Raghavan (pictured below) leading the pack with 281,000 in chips.

Raghavan resides in Champaign, Illinois, and has collected nearly $3.6 million in live tournament earnings. Over $1.8 million of those have come on the World Poker Tour with Raghavan’s most notable score occurring in Season XI when he won the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic for $1,268,571. Since then, Raghavan has added an additional 12 WPT Main Tour cashes including a sixth-place finish in the Season XVII WPT Seminole Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open.

Joining Raghavan for Day 2 includes a plethora of fellow WPT Champions Club members as the likes of Matthew Waxman (255,000), Patrick Serda (210,000), Dylan Wilkerson (147,300), Anthony Zinno (143,400), Brian Altman (132,800), Mike Del Vecchio (125,100), Tony Tran (115,500), J.C. Tran (114,600), Freddy Deeb (113,300), Matt Salsberg (107,000), Dylan Linde (102,100), Justin Young (100,700), Iaron Lightbourne (95,000), Jordan Cristos (91,200), James Carroll (86,800), David Williams (85,300), Jared Jaffee (85,200), Jason Brin (81,000), Eli Elezra (78,700), Lee Markholt (70,900), Jay Lee (69,000), Chris Leong (66,900), Harrison Gimbel (60,400), Frank Stepuchin (59,300, Mohsin Charania (57,800), Asher Conniff (56,100), Keven Stammen (52,400), James Calderaro (52,000), Daniel Strelitz (48,800), Jesse Sylvia (46,300), Sam Panzica (40,800), Nam Le (36,100), Chris Moorman (35,300), and WPT Commentator Tony Dunst (13,900).

Also surviving into Day 2 is the current leader in the WPT Player of the Year race as Erkut Yilmaz (pictured below) finished with 97,300 fresh off winning WPT Rolling Thunder just last week. His closest rivals in Linde and Ping Liu will also be joining him on Day 2, while there are many scenarios that Yilmaz will need to fade to leave WPT at Venetian still in the lead.

With 612 entrants in the field, the $1 million guarantee has already been nearly doubled. However, with the registration and re-entry period open until through the start of Level 11 (approximately 2:15 p.m.), the prize pool will continue to swell as many players take advantage of the generous registration period. The plan for Day 2 is to play ten 60-minute levels with a 15-minute break every two levels.

Day 2 of WPT at Venetian begins on Sunday, March 24, at 12 p.m. (PDT). Stay tuned right here to WPT.com for the exclusive live coverage of the tournament from start to finish to see who becomes the WPT at Venetian Champion, and wins his or her way to the season-ending Baccarat Crystal WPT Tournament of Champions.

Photography by Joe Giron / PokerPhotoArchive

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