Heroes With A Half-Stack

Tournament poker can be a fickle mistress. We’ve spotted a few well known players who have around half their starting stack after two levels of play.

One of them is Dennis Phillips, who finished 3rd in the 2008 WSOP Main Event, got a little back in a recent hand.

Phillips opened for 450 and picked up one caller in the big blind. The flop was and a 700 continuation bet from Phillips was called. The turn and river was checked and Phillips turned over his one pair not looking like he expected to win the pot, but win it he did.

Ari Engel however is going on the opposite direction having nearly doubled his starting stack.