Po Ying Climbs Back to the Top to Take Chip Lead into Day 3 as 22 Advance
Day 2 of the Big Stax XXXI 300 saw a total of 207 players come into the day for action as 30 more entred before late registration closed and when the dust settled, just 22 found a bag moving onto the third and final day of the tournament.
With the final table yet to be assembled, the remaining players will look to acquire chips from Po Ying. Ying came into Day 2 second in chips as the Day 1a chip leader and held on to that title for most of the day, It wasn't until right before the dinner break when he was dethroned when he ran his pocket kings into James Bambrick pocket aces. Even after losing over half of his stack, Ying kept his composure turning his 900,000 stack into 5,250,00 by days end.
Coming up hot on Ying's tail is Bin Weng. Weng steadily increased his chips all throughout the day, but his biggest pot came at the end of the night when he rivered trip fours and scored a double elimination of Qing Guo and Angel Lopez.
Rounding out the top three stacks is none other than Victor Ramdin. Ramdin was on of the 30 players to start Day 2 off with a fresh 30,000 starting stack. It didn't take long for Ramdin to start making noise as he flopped a set of sevens to Michael Guzzardi one player before bubble. Ramdin continued his hot streak in the very next hand as he flopped another set to crack Russell Youngken pocket aces to send him out on the bubble.
Final 3 Table Seat Draw
| Table | Seat | Player | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | 1 | Frank Adams | 990,000 |
| 9 | 3 | James Brady | 715,000 |
| 9 | 5 | Victor Ramdin | 3,875,000 |
| 9 | 6 | Ngoc-Loan Duong | 495,000 |
| 9 | 7 | Michael Bonita | 570,000 |
| 9 | 8 | Johnny Lau | 1,950,000 |
| 9 | 9 | Dwayne Allen | 2,815,000 |
| 10 | 1 | Nathaniel Lindquist | 1,665,000 |
| 10 | 2 | Po Ying | 5,250,000 |
| 10 | 4 | Steven Petitte | 2,225,000 |
| 10 | 5 | James Bambrick | 2,840,000 |
| 10 | 6 | Sean Byars | 1,790,000 |
| 10 | 7 | Maksim Serebrinskiy | 1,820,000 |
| 10 | 8 | Jose Pereira | 915,000 |
| 10 | 9 | Joseph Agron Jr | 1,500,000 |
| 11 | 1 | Luigi Santoro | 415,000 |
| 11 | 2 | John Malczan | 960,000 |
| 11 | 4 | Andrew Wu | 3,305,000 |
| 11 | 5 | Michael Dalessandro | 1,465,000 |
| 11 | 6 | Prashanth Nataraj | 1,060,000 |
| 11 | 7 | Bin Weng | 4,545,000 |
| 11 | 9 | Daniel Pabon | 1,190,000 |
Many notable players made the money but failed to capture a Day 3 birth and that list includes the likes of Naveen Chettipally (30th - $1,852), Alba Veliu (35th - $1,852), Eric Lawton (47th - $1,329), Erwin Fonacier (48th - $1,329), Ryan Eriquezzo (52nd - $1,329), Guoliang Chen (99th - $926), Alida Veliu (102nd - $926), Gregory Fishberg (116th - $846, Joseph Palma (132nd - $805), and defending champion James Lillis (142nd - $805).
The final 22 players will return at noon on Monday, with the final day will take place in the poker room in the main casino. Action will start from level 26 with blinds of 25,000/50,000/50,000. The levels will increase to 90-minutes in length with a 15-minute break after every one level of play. The tournament will not stop until a winner is crowned, taking home the $72,341 first-place prize.
Stay tuned here as PokerNews will be on the tournament floor bringing you all of the live-action from Day 3 of the Big Stax XXXI 300.