World Series of Poker Circuit New Orleans Day 2: Wood Leads The Final Ten
The Main Event of the World Series of Poker Circuit at Harrah's New Orleans resumed on Tuesday with 70 players remaining from the starting field of 382. It was a grueling day for many as after 10 one-hour levels, the official final table of nine has yet to be reached. An unofficial final table of ten that will be eager to get back to the felt on Wednesday to vie for the $121,017 first-place prize. Leading the way into Day 3 is Todd Wood with a stack of 1,619,000.
Wood chipped up throughout the day and found himself second in chips with 22 left at the dinner break. Only Allie Prescott commanded a bigger stack at the time. Within the first level back from dinner, though, all of Prescott's chips became part of Wood's stack.
The biggest pot of the tournament came at the 5,000/10,000/1,000 level and started when Wood opened to 26,000 from early position. Prescott made it 65,000 to play from late position, and Wood put the decision right back on Allie with a four-bet to 150,000. After a few moments, Prescott five-bet shoved but within a split second he was staring at Wood's A♥A♦. Prescott tabled K♥K♠ and found no help from the board that came down J♣7♦2♦6♠5♥. They counted out the nearly even stacks, but Wood did indeed have Prescott covered to score the elimination and become the massive chip leader. He never relinquished his lead and found himself as top dog going into Wednesday.
Second in chips was Joshua Evans with 1,159,000. While there is no doubt that everybody gets lucky at some point during a given tournament, that may be an understatement in Evans' case. During the course of the day, Evans ran into several big hands. He not only managed to survive, but he thrived. The biggest of the pots came with 11 and 10 players left, respectively. First, he ran Q♦Q♣ into eventual 11th-place finisher B.J. McBrayer's K♠K♣. A queen on the flop saved McBrayer and gave him a stack of more than 650,000. The next double-up came through Matt Waxman at the unofficial final table of ten. Evans four-bet shoved with A♣4♣ and was facing Waxman's A♥J♥. A jack did pair up Waxman, but the J♣8♥6♣10♣3♣ board was as good as it gets for Evans, who found himself with a seven-figure stack from that point forward.
Among those who cashed but who won't be back for Day 3 include the aforementioned Prescott, plus Mario Silvestri, Dwyte Pilgrim, Mstr Lynch, and Mike Beasley. Here are the seating assignments and chip counts for the "unofficial" final table.
| Seat | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lance Craig | 694,000 |
| 2 | Joshua Evans | 1,159,000 |
| 3 | Matt Waxman | 460,000 |
| 4 | Robert Toye | 882,000 |
| 5 | Jonathon Poche | 656,000 |
| 6 | Jake Bazeley | 983,000 |
| 7 | Todd Wood | 1,619,000 |
| 8 | Billie Payne | 307,000 |
| 9 | Scott Zakheim | 491,000 |
| 10 | James McBride | 395,000 |
Play resumes Wednesday at 1400 CDT (1900 GMT). Our Live Reporting Team will be back on the floor to keep you up-to-date on everything that happens, and as always, follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news.
