WSOPC Harrah's New Orleans Day 2: Justin Wainscott Leads Final 72

Justin Wainscott

Day 2 of the World Series of Poker Circuit Harrah's New Orleans Main Event has come to a close after 337 players returned at the start of the day. Now, just 72 players remain and all are guaranteed at least $2,797. Justin Wainscott ended atop the counts with a healthy lead over the rest of the field after bagging 732,000.

Registration was open until the start of the day, which means some late entrants brought the final number of players up to 694. That created a prize pool of $1,008,770, which includes a $10,000 seat into this year's WSOP Main Event, slated to be paid out to the top 72 finishers. A min-cash is worth $2,797 and a final table appearance guarantees $19,156, but everyone has their eyes set on the first-place prize of $204,748, not to mention a seat into this year's National Championship.

Tim Burt (486,000) and Richard Kelley (421,000) are the closest behind him but still have a ways to go. Notables Daniel Lowery (214,000), Darvin Moon (200,000), Maurice Hawkins (185,000), David Fox (98,000), Matt Chang (89,000) and “Captain” Tom Franklin (53,000) are also moving on to Day 3.

Day 2 sent a lot of players to the rail including Huy Nguyen, Aaron Massey, Kurt Jewell, Jacob Bazeley, Cory Burbick, Chris Conrad, Matthew Hankins, Mark “Pegasus” Smith, Mike Wolf, Doug Carli, John Dolan, La Sengphet and Sam Barnhart.

The day’s action began at a blistering pace. Nearly a third of field was eliminated in the first couple of hours.

One of the overnight chipleaders, Bobby Toye, was eliminated in a monster hand that propelled Wainscott to the top of the leaderboard. Wainscott held pocket aces, Toye had Ax Kx and a third player held Qx Qx. An ace on flop gave Wainscott a lock on the hand and a mountain of chips.

Day 3 is set to begin at 1400 CDT (1800 BST) on Sunday as the final 72 will play down to the final table of nine.

Top 10 Chip Counts

PlacePlayerChip Count
1Justin Wainscott732,000
2Tim Burt486,000
3Richard Kelley421,000
4Anthony Vidmer397,000
5Blake Barousse395,600
6Mandeep Narang360,000
7Scott Williams321,000
8Andrew Nguyen299,000
9Dominic Gabaldon291,000
10Daniel Weinman270,000

Get all the latest PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook today! In the meantime, see who qualifies for the National Championship this week by following our Live Reporting Team’s coverage from the Harrah’s New Orleans.

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