Live reporting by Aaron McBride and Lisa Yiasemides
Following a staggering run through the latter part of the day, Paul Siddle (pictured above) starts in pole position tomorrow, after bagging a whopping 870,000 in chips. That is almost 200,000 more than his closest rival, Manig Loeser (pictured below), who takes through 678,000. Siddle hit a straight flush not long before the end, which contributed a lot of chips. More details of that can be found in the live updates below. Meanwhile, Barry Grime (585,000), Arnaud Enselme (556,500) and Kahle Burns (552,500) complete the top five.
With one minute left on the clock of Level 18, play was paused for the evening as the bubble burst and all remaining players bagged for the day ahead of Day 3 tomorrow, having reached the money. Eoghan O’Dea was the unfortunate bubble boy after he failed to survive a flip with ace-king against Duco Ten Haven’s pocket-tens.
It was good news for everyone else with all 87 players who made it through today, locking up at least $6,000 for the mincash. This is also the case for the 13 online players (which include Team partypoker online Jeff Gross, Harry Lodge, and Romaine Lewis) who will join the mix tomorrow. The full prizepool and payout information will be confirmed when the field combines at noon tomorrow.
There are still some big names in contention, with partypoker Sponsored Pros Sam Trickett (pictured above) who has 270,000 and Bertrand Grospellier (97,500) still in. WPTDS Champions Simon Brandstrom (482,500) and Sandro Pitzanti (212,000) and Champions Club member Matas Cimbolas (314,000) are still in with a shot, as are Jimmy Kebe (365,500), Martin Jacobson (342,000), Adrian Mateos (297,000) and Maria Lampropulos (234,500).
It wasn’t good news for all the pros, with Orpen Kisacikoglu busting in Level 15, despite starting the day with the chip lead. He was joined at the rail by partypoker Sponsored pros Roberto Romanello, Bruno Fitoussi, John Duthie and Ludovic Geilich, plus partypoker Ambassador Carl Froch. WPT Champions Club members Dietrich Fast, James Romero and Javier Gomez, WPTDS Champion Felix Schulze, Jack Salter, Rainer Kempe, Tony Dunst, Niall Farrell and Jake Cody all bit the dust before the end.
Join WPT.com tomorrow, for Day 3, where the team will bring you complete coverage of all the action from start to finish in the penultimate day of the flagship Main Event.