Lappas Leads Final 10; Finne Eyeing Second Final Table of the Series
Event #47 $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Low Split 8-or-Better continued on Wednesday as the final 141 runners of a 978-player field returned to battle through the money and onwards toward a final table. After ten levels of play, just 10 remained with Charalampos Lappas and his stack of 994,000 leading the way.
Lappas emerged as the chip leader in the last hand of the night, which you can read about below. We should also note that Steve Loube is hot on his heels with 947,000.
Loube caught a rush of cards during the last level of play. In one hand, Noomis Jones was all in on a 
flop with 
for a set of queens but was in dire straits versus Loube's 
. The turn was the 
and river the 
, and Jones was out in 14th place for $12,094. Loube moved up over 1 million, the first player to do so.
Long before the chip leaders emerged, the day began with everyone looking to make the money at the top 117 and claim a share of the $1,320,300 prize pool. That meant 24 players needed to hit the rail, and no man would come closer and leave more heartbroken than Neil McFayden, who reraised all in for around 16,000 after Steve Jelinek had raised. The latter made the call with 
and was up against McFayden’s 
. The board ran out 
and it took McFayden a moment to recognize that his set of aces had been beaten by Jelinek's straight. This was good news for another man at the table, Terrence Chan, who only had 800 in chips and squeaked into the money for his ninth cash of the 2012 WSOP.
Other in-the-money eliminations included Alexander Kuzmin (111th-$2,509), Doug “Rico” Carli (108th-$2,509), Matt Vengrin (104th-$2,509), Andy Frankenberger (97th-$2,720), David Bach (92nd-$2,720), Joe Tehan (79th-$3,288; also his ninth cash of the 2012 WSOP), Allen Kessler (71st-$3,697), Warren Oberman (67th-$3,697), Sean Getzwiller (55th-$4,212) and James Dempsey (50th-$4,872).
Right before dinner there was a major chip swing — and a sudden, surprising elimination — over on Table 427. Following a flop of 
, Alex Gomes, who began the day as the chip leader, and Lappas managed to bet enough to put all of Gomes's chips in the middle and most of Lappas's. Gomes held 
for top two pair while Lappas had 
for aces and the nut low draw.
The turn brought a , and Gomes was still good as far the high hand went, and Lappas had yet to make a low. Then a fell on the river, pairing the board to give Lappas the best high hand and all of Gomes's stack. With that, the start-of-the-day chip leader was dispatched in 46th place for $4,872.
When players returned from the dinner break, action picked up right where it left off as more than 30 players hit the rail before the end of the night including Justin Young (44th-$5,704), Chip Jett (35th-$6,747), Barry Greenstein (32nd-$6,747), Dan Heimiller (26th-$8,080), Lee Watkinson (25th-$8,080) and Dario Alioto (17th-$9,823).
Among the 10 players returning are Paul Ewen, Kyle Carlston, Paul Taylor, Sonu Sharma, Cameron Mckinley, Viatcheslav Ortynskiy, Charalampos Lappas, Tim Finne and Roche Cousineau.
Day 3 will begin at 1:00 PM PST, so be sure to join us then as we bring you all the action and eliminations on the way to an Event #47 $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Low Split 8-or-Better champion.