2009 WSOP Main Event Days 2A and 2B

Well now that the four Day 1 sessions are over, its time for Day 2 to begin. Day 2 is broken up into two separate days (2A and 2B). If you saw my first blog entry you would be aware that there were 6,494 players in this years main event (what bad economy?). Well at the conclusion of all the Day 2 action there would only be 1,724 players left. Many big names fell on Day 2 including Mike Matusow, Scotty Nguyen, Vanessa Rousso, Howard Lederer, Gus Hansen, Phil Laak, Barry Greenstein, and Jennifer Tilly. However, with all the big names that have fallen there are also many big names who are still alive.

Going back to my first blog entry, I listed my top 10 players I wanted to see win this years main event. From that list only 3 players remain, but it was my # 1, # 2, and # 5 choices. Here is an update on those three players. (Keep in mind the chip avg going into Day 3 will be 113,000)

Phil Hellmuth- started Day 2 with a short stack of just 27,000 chips. However, after an entire day at the ESPN feature table, Hellmuth ran over the table of unknowns and upped his stack all the way to 135,000 by days end. His twitter said he was calm and relaxed for the first time in 6 years at the main event.

Josh Arieh- my personal favorite to win the main event. He was a big stack coming into Day 2 and did nothing to hurt himself during the day. Arieh added over 100K to his stack during the day and finished near the top of the leader board with 225,000

Phil Ivey- due to the huge field that was playing on Day 2B, Ivey's table got pushed in the "Miranda Room" which is an outside poker room full of only a hundred tables or so. Ivey's table may have been pushed aside, but his game was dead on. Ivey won a ton of medium sized pots to start the day and then won his big pot when he got it all in with K-K against his opponent's A-K. No Ace hit the board and Ivey won one of the biggest pots of the tournament thus far. Ivey took down that 200,000+ chip pot and ended the day with a huge stack of 325,000 chips. Its still early, but things look good for Ivey to make a serious run at this thing.

While those are my three biggest names left in the main event, there are still a ton of other top pros still in the main event who are thriving. Some of those names are:

-Kenny Tran
-Paul Wasicka (2006 runner-up)
- Dennis Phillips (3rd place finisher last year)
- Justin Bonomo
- Dan Harrington (3rd place in 2003) (4th place in 2004)
- Jeff Lisandro (3-time bracelet winner this year alone)
- Antonio Esfandiari
- Hevad Khan
- Joe Hachem (2005 champion)
- Jordan Farmer (yes, the Los Angeles Laker)
- Peter Eastgate (defending champ; turned 8K into 100K in final hour)
- Lee Watkinson
- Humberto Brenes
- John Juanda
- Jen Harmen
- David Bach (this year's H.O.R.S.E. world champ)

So as you can see, so many possibilities this year for the pros. The action takes a break on Thursday for media day. Day 3 will start on Friday at noon with another blog update to come out Saturday morning covering Day 3's action.

Po's blog will still give a summary of the action for Day 3, but once Day 4 arrives it becomes moving day for the players, so the blog will pick it up and provide detailed hand descriptions for all the big names (hopefully) still alive by then. And as always, until then....

BASIC KNOWLEDGE.......