Starr Surges Late to Lead of Final Nine After Wild Day 2 of the PokerNews Cup
Day 2 of the Golden Nugget Grand Poker Series Event #55 2022 PokerNews Cup $1,100 has reached its end after about 11 hours of play. The day began with 156 hopefuls out of a field of 1,245 and ended with the final table of nine.
The chip leader of the final nine is Eoin Starr with 8,850,000. He collected the majority of his stack on the hand of the night where Thomas Hayward jammed an overpair into his flopped trips which gave Starr a huge pot and send Hayward out the door after he had previously been chip leader not long before that.
Forrest Kollar finished with the second largest stack with 7,125,000 after he had a surge late in the night to become one of the forces in the tournament. Right behind him in third is David Von Schnehen with 7,025,000. Von Schnehen showed a lot of aggression with two tables left as he was often involved in interesting pots, many of them he won to swell his stack.
After the top three, there was a significant gap in chips as the fourth-place stack, Steven Sarmiento has nearly three-times fewer chips than third place. The rest of the pack finished clumped together as the bottom six stacks were all within 600,000 of each other, one of them being well-known Scott Stewart.
Final Table Seat Assignments
| Table | SEAT | PLAYER | Country | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FT | 1 | Gary Gelman | United States | 2,575,000 | 21 |
| FT | 2 | Steven Sarmiento | United States | 2,650,000 | 21 |
| FT | 3 | Forrest Kollar | United States | 7,125,000 | 57 |
| FT | 4 | Patrick Caulfield | United States | 2,400,000 | 19 |
| FT | 5 | Eoin Starr | Ireland | 8,850,000 | 71 |
| FT | 6 | Scott Stewart | United States | 2,375,000 | 19 |
| FT | 7 | David Von Schnehen | United Kingdom | 7,025,000 | 56 |
| FT | 8 | Levi Klump | United States | 2,175,000 | 17 |
| FT | 9 | Daniel Hinh | Australia | 2,000,000 | 16 |
The day started with 156 players, with everyone in the money and with many short stacks kicking about, the eliminations came fast and furious. The field was trimmed by half by the first break after just two hours and things would not slow down from there.
Some of the notables eliminated early in the day included; Patrick Tardif (104th), Irene Carey (73rd) and Dmitri Nobles (42nd).
After a dinner break, the stakes would get higher and the pots would get bigger as the field reached the final four tables. Harry Lodge (31st), Christopher Ahrens (18th) and Joon Kim (12th) were among those to depart before Hayward’s dramatic bust out and Marius Kudzmanas was the last to go in tenth before the final table was reached.
The final nine players will play the final table starting at 2 p.m. Tuesday, June 28. It will be streamed on PokerNews youtube page as well as on twitch.
PokerNews will provide updates based on the stream. So stay tuned for the conclusion of this event.
vs the 
. The flop came 
the turn was the 
and the river came the 
to end the run for Kudzmanas and bring the field to the official final table.
flop but fouund some help on the 
turn. Now with a straight draw as well as his overcards, Stewart seemed relaxed that his card would come. The 
. Hayward bet 225,000 and Star check-raised to 700,000. Hayward thought for several moments before three-betting all in which Starr snap-called.
while Hayward had flopped trips with the 
.
and the river the 
turn gave him outs to Broadway but the 
river confirmed his exit in 12th place.
turn. The 
completed the board which was of no help to the shorter stack, and Rao exited the tournament area.
flop. Some of those outs were removed when the 
river.
