$5,000 Main Event Day 2 | 2017 PokerStars Championship Bahamas

01-10-2017 22:08 UTC-4

Nick Maimone Leads the Field Into Day 3

ElleSriracha

Level 14 : 1,500/3,000, 500 ante

The 2017 PokerStars Championship Bahamas Main Event closed registration at the start of Day 2. The event attracted a total of 738 players with 699 of those registering on Day 1a and 1b and the remainder coming in before the start of play on Day 2. 28 players who won a ticket via a Spin & Go never showed up to play, but their buy-ins were added to the prize pool. With a total prize pool of $3,376,712, first place is paying $480,012 and a min cash is worth $7,260.

Aaron Paul headlined Day 1b and most of Day 2. He was, however, unable to find a bag at the end of the six levels. The Breaking Bad star was short and eventually got his remaining chips in the middle with ace-nine. Daniel Colman called with queen-ten and Paul was immediately on his feet to sweat the result of the hand. The flop and turn ran out an ace, king and two jacks; giving Colman the nut straight but Paul was live if he managed to find a way to make a full house on the river. The deuce was a brick, though, and Paul was sent to the rail with only nine spots to go until the bubble would burst.

Play ended at the end of Level 14, shortly after Noah Boeken was eliminated by Tom Janssens on the bubble. Janssens raised the cutoff and Boeken, a former EPT Copenhagen champion and Master Classics of Poker winner, jammed his remaining 15,800 all in from the big blind. Janssens called and tabled ace-five, while Boeken had the dominating pocket tens. Janssens smashed the river to make a straight, sending Boeken home in 144th place on the stone bubble.

Nick Maimone bagged the most chips at the end of the day with 689,000, with Daniel Colman close behind with 620,000. Maimone is no stranger to The Bahamas as he took second in a $5,000 event in 2015 and took down the $25,000 High Roller last year for just shy of a million dollars. Even though Maimone has just under two million in live recorded cashes, he has only a single recorded win. He'll look to book his second one later this week.

Other notable players to find a bag tonight include Pascal Lefrancois (484,500), Mike McDonald (436,000), Sylvain Loosli (374,000), Cliff Josephy (242,500), Team PokerStars Pros Jason Mercier (281,000) and Barry Greenstein (95,000) and Team Online's Jaime Staples (211,500).

Familiar faces who made it to Day 2 but did not move on include William Kassouf, Marc-Andre Ladouceur, Maria Ho, Mustafa Kanit, Jason Koon and Team PokerStars Pros Vanessa Selbst, Daniel Negreanu and Victor Ramdin.

Day 3 fires up tomorrow at noon with 125 players returning to play another six levels on the road to crowning a winner in the first-ever PokerStars Championship Bahamas Main Event. Blinds will start at 2,000/4,000 when the players return. Stay with us here at PokerNews for more live coverage!

Table	Seat	Player	Country	Chip Count
1	1	Dorian Rios Pavon	Venezuela	52,000
1	2	Nacho Barbero	Argentina	77,500
1	3	Will Failla	United States	39,500
1	4	Donys Ivan Agnelli Rojas	Venezuela	175,000
1	5	Jacques Der Megreditchian	France	84,000
1	6	Thomas Bo Markussen	Denmark	29,500
1	7	Axat Tulsidas Mawji	United Kingdom	169,500
1	8	Michael Vela	United States	440,500

2	1	Dan Høidahl	Norway	33,500
2	2	Bradley Snider	United States	29,000
2	3	Allon Allison	Canada	252,000
2	4	Paul Knebel	Germany	31,000
2	5	Scott Stewart	United States	115,500
2	6	Harrison Gimbel	United States	204,000
2	7	Sam Chartier	Canada	157,000
2	8	Mike McDonald	Canada	436,000

3	1	Michael Zuckerman	United States	77,000
3	2	Smit Trivedi	United Kingdom	149,000
3	3	Luke Haward	United Kingdom	8,000
3	4	Arnaud Mattern	France	27,500
3	5	Valentin Messina	France	302,500
3	6	Thomas Muehlemann	Switzerland	93,500
3	7	Byron Kaverman	United States	286,000
3	8	Hendrik Latz	Germany	317,500

4	1	Pascal Lefrancois	Canada	184,500
4	2	Esther Taylor	United States	35,000
4	3	Pablo Mariz	Canada	41,000
4	4	Kevin Andriamahefa	Canada	173,500
4	5	Myung Shin	United States	204,000
4	6	Stein Vegar Rødseth	Norway	99,500
4	7	Rasmus Glæsel	Norway	322,000
4	8	Nick Maimone	United States	689,000

5	1	Francois Billard	Canada	20,000
5	2	Bradley Marsh	Canada	126,500
5	3	Fabio Freitas	Brazil	149,000
5	4	Raul Martinez	Spain	186,000
5	5	Pedro Baptista Martinho Cabeca	Portugal	428,500
5	6	Francisco Benitez	Uruguay	188,500
5	7	Benjamin Philipps	United Kingdom	250,500
5	8	Jeremey Grayson	Canada	50,000

6	1	Czeslaw Szerszen	United States	145,500
6	2	Murad Akhundov	Azerbaijan	224,500
6	3	Michael Bartholomew	Canada	46,500
6	4	Yakov Onuchin	Russia	244,500
6	5	Jason Mercier	United States	281,500
6	6	Brian England	United States	72,500
6	7	Robert Zipf	Germany	51,000
6	8	Ronan Gorey	Ireland	202,500

7	1	Likith Govindaiah	United States	100,000
7	2	Ramiro Petrone	Argentina	265,000
7	3	Davidi Kitai	Belgium	44,000
7	4	Diego Gomez	Spain	152,500
7	5	Bernard Lee	United States	35,500
7	6	Tom Janssens	Belgium	229,500
7	7	Steven Kerr	Canada	22,000
7	8	Erling Voje	Norway	49,500

8	1	Mariano Martiradonna	Italy	108,000
8	2	Nenad Medic	Canada	97,500
8	4	Massimo De Mario	Italy	128,000
8	5	Benjamin Wittams-Smith	United Kingdom	25,000
8	6	James Martyn	Canada	210,000
8	7	Kliment Tarmakov	Canada	140,500
8	8	James Tian	United States	147,500

9	1	Harry Ratchford	United States	22,000
9	2	Jorge De Oliveira Lopez	Portugal	90,000
9	3	Nick Mossa	Canada	62,500
9	4	Chance Kornuth	United States	97,500
9	5	Ami Alibay	Canada	300,500
9	6	Rex Clinkscales	United States	428,500
9	7	Marcin Kapkowski	Poland	274,000
9	8	Aleksei Opalikhin	Russia	387,500

10	1	Lucian Voigt	Germany	167,500
10	2	Allen Kessler	United States	152,500
10	3	Michael Gentili	Canada	190,000
10	4	Nadezhda Magnus	United States	200,500
10	6	John Engledow	United Kingdom	136,500
10	7	Christian Harder	United States	232,000
10	8	Jan Kralik	Czech Republic	203,500

11	1	Gaelle Baumann	France	217,500
11	3	Erick Brenes Cuadra	Costa Rica	68,000
11	4	Eric Semel	United States	43,000
11	5	Barry Greenstein	United States	95,000
11	6	Florian Haiduc	Romania	250,000
11	7	Mikko Turtiainen	Finland	160,000
11	8	Matthew Wantman	United States	92,000

12	1	Gautam Lillaney	Jamaica	155,000
12	2	Marius Cazacu	Romania	145,000
12	3	Adrian Mateos	Spain	204,500
12	4	Paul Fisher	United States	32,500
12	5	Damien Steel	Canada	257,000
12	6	Stig Moen	Norway	205,000
12	7	Vincent Moscati	United States	17,500
12	8	Mattias Priolo	Sweden	274,000

13	1	John Dibella	United States	80,000
13	2	Jackduyph Duong	United States	142,000
13	3	Kyle Zechner	Canada	113,500
13	4	James Juvancic	United States	431,500
13	5	Dan Colman	United States	620,000
13	6	Martin Raus	Canada	19,500
13	7	Patrick Stacey	Cayman Islands	111,500
13	8	Justin Ouimette	Canada	133,500

14	1	Joaquin Walter	Uruguay	125,000
14	2	Sylvain Loosli	France	374,000
14	3	Andrew Ryan	United States	307,500
14	4	Richard Seymour	United States	110,000
14	5	Daniel Weinman	United States	167,000
14	6	Erik Lemarquand	Canada	49,000
14	7	Tony Tran	United States	298,000
14	8	Lucas Greenwood	Canada	173,000

15	1	Andjelko Andrejevic	United States	103,500
15	2	Ryan Riess	United States	249,500
15	3	Jaime Staples	Canada	211,500
15	4	Benoit Galland	Canada	39,000
15	5	Cliff Josephy	United States	242,500
15	6	Shawn Buchanan	Canada	286,500
15	7	Alan Schein	United States	112,500
15	8	Willliam Batista Arruda	Brazil	360,000

16	1	Stanislav Miroshkin	Russia	44,000
16	2	Pedro Da Cunha Cavalieri Doro	Brazil	61,500
16	3	Rodrigo Cordoba	Argentina	364,500
16	4	Michael Scarborough	United States	108,000
16	5	Michael Bills	United States	162,500
16	6	Paul Ephremsen	United Kingdom	182,500
16	7	Pratyush Buddiga	United States	177,500
16	8	Benjamin Zamani	United States	81,000

Tags: Aaron Paul Barry Greenstein Cliff Josephy Daniel Colman Daniel Negreanu Jaime Staples Jason Koon Jason Mercier Marc Ladouceur Maria Ho Mike McDonald Mustapha Kanit Nick Maimone Noah Boeken Pascal LeFrancois Sylvain Loosli Vanessa Selbst Victor Ramdin William Kassouf

01-10-2017 21:42 UTC-4

Govert Metaal and Gabriel Attiave Both Bust to Mike Vela

Chad Holloway

Level 14 : 1,500/3,000, 500 ante

Both Gabriel Attiave and Govert Metaal were short after the bubble, and each got their respective stacks in preflop while Mike Vela and another player had side action.

A bet from Vela on a flop got the other active player to fold, and then all three players tabled their hands.

Metaal:
Attiave:
Vela:

Vela paired his ten on the flop to take the lead, and he held it when the appeared on the turn followed by the on the river. With that, Vela scored the double elimination.

Player	Chips	Progress
Michael Vela	450,000	50,000
Govert Metaal	Busted
Gabriel Attiave	Busted

Tags: Gabriel Attiave Govert Metaal Mike Vela

01-10-2017 21:29 UTC-4

Noah Boeken Bubbles the PokerStars Championship Bahamas

Webjoker

Level 14 : 1,500/3,000, 500 ante

With several short stacks just hanging on hoping to survive the bubble, the atmosphere was tense in the Imperial Ballroom of the Atlantis resort. Just one more player would go empty-handed, but who would it be? Davidi Kitai, one of the shortest players in the tournament, was eyeing the other stacks, other shorties walked around as well to see where they ranked.

Over on Table 2, Belgian player Tom Janssens raised the cutoff and Dutchman Noah Boeken in the big blind shoved for 15,800. Janssens did not hesitate and called.

Action was once again paused, waiting for the other tables to finish. "I have a very bad hand" Boeken admitted, but he did know he was in front as Janssens had admitted what he had already.

It turned out two more players would end up all-in that hand, but it was Boeken versus Janssens who showed first.

Noah Boeken:
Tom Janssens:

With the cameras buzzing and the onlookers holding their breath, the dealer burned a card and placed the first three community cards just above the divider line in the middle of the table: .

So far, things were looking good for Boeken but the turn would change that. Janssens asked for a six to spice things up but instead got the , which still made things interesting.

Jason Mercier predicted the three to come and so it did: on the river to give Janssens a wheel and Boeken's dream of cashing the first ever PokerStars Championship were crushed.

The former EPT Copenhagen and Master Classics of Poker champion could still chop a min cash if one or two of the other players that were at risk would bust, but he would not get so lucky. Both shorties doubled and Boeken ended up as the pure and only bubble.

Player	Chips	Progress
Noah Boeken	Busted

Tags: Noah Boeken

01-10-2017 19:57 UTC-4

Breaking: Bad Beat Sends Aaron Paul Packing

MrPaulSeaton

Level 13 : 1,200/2,400, 400 ante

He got it in good, but he busted bad. Aaron Paul, famous as TV's Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad, busted nine players from the money here on Day 2 of the PokerStars Championship Bahamas.

With just nine places to go until the money bubble will burst, Paul got his chips in good, moving all-in with . He was eventually called by the preflop aggressor Daniel Colman, who has made it 5,000 to go from under the gun in the first place. Colman called it off with after asking Paul if he wanted a call. That question got a poker face - he's a major Hollywood actor, yo! But once the cards were on their backs, Paul was on his feet, hoping to hold.

The flop of kept Paul on The Path to a vital double-up, but the turn gave Colman a Broadway straight, and Paul span on his heels in frustation. An 'Argh' and a grimace, but the film and television star still had hope. Another ace or a third jack on the board would give him a full house, but he couldn't find his outs as the came on the river to send him crashing out just before the money.

"So close." said Paul, and he gallantly shook hands with Colman.

Of all the players he shared a table with over the past couple of days, Paul and Colman seemed to have the most to talk about, with Colman reminiscing about watching early episodes of Breaking Bad while playing online among other subjects. It was Colman who did for Paul's chances in the Main Event, however, and as he made his way from the table, Paul had just three words for the players he shared his last table with.

"Good luck, boys!"

With just eight to go from the money, some will need fortune more than others. Daniel Colman doesn't need a bit of it, sitting behind 375,000 chips.

Player	Chips	Progress
Daniel Colman	375,000	305,000
Aaron Paul	Busted

Tags: Aaron Paul Daniel Colman

01-10-2017 19:20 UTC-4

Kaverman Gets Gonzalez

MrPaulSeaton

Level 13 : 1,200/2,400, 400 ante

Byron Kaverman may be one of those 'computers' that Kevin Hart joked about here the other day in the Bahamas. He's certainly playing like a machine and building a stack once more, just a matter of hours after finishing third in the $50,000 Single Re-Entry High Roller!

We joined the action between Kaverman and Gonzalez with the board complete and showing and Kaverman betting 25,000 into a pot of 40,000. Gonzalez went in to the tank for so long that the clock was called on him, but before the clock had really start ticking on him, he moved all-in. Kaverman called and showed and that was better than Gonzalez' . He made his way from the room and Kaverman piled yet another big stack here in the Bahamas. Can he make back-to-back final tables?

Player	Chips	Progress
Byron Kaverman	185,000	71,000
Fabrizio Gonzalez	Busted

Tags: Byron Kaverman Fabrizio Gonzalez

01-10-2017 17:57 UTC-4

"Timex" Hopes to Correct Poker Market, Cater to Fans

mnuwwarah

Level 12 : 1,000/2,000, 300 ante

Any time a new poker-related business venture gets introduced, poker players and industry observers everywhere often collectively set lines on how long this venture will last.

With the new PokerShares website introduced by Mike "Timex" McDonald via a Twitter post Jan. 4, things feel a little different. That's because the poker world has always been enamored with action, and this represents more of it with the chance to bet on the performance of players. In part, it's because PokerShares has the potential to change the landscape of the tournament poker action-selling market and give poker fans a connection to players with real, monetary incentives.

It all started as almost a joke on a poker forum nearly a decade ago.

What McDonald estimates was about nine years ago, selling bundles of action was becoming more and more the norm, and pricing started to climb as sellers realized they could make out like bandits with high mark-up. Playing a $10,000 event? Sell 40 percent at 1.25 and you've made a cool $1,000 in no time.

Some felt things were getting out of hand. Players named their own prices, and yet buyers still clamored for action — these are poker players, after all. McDonald was among those casting a skeptical eye on some of the prices he saw. He looked at one long-forgotten posting and wondered at the state of things.

"Someone was selling at some crazy markup and I was just like, I'd bet against this guy at this rate," he recalled. "For a long time, I've felt the poker marketplace was not very fair to buyers."

The seeds had been planted for what would become the Bank of Timex. In June 2013, McDonald opened the Bank of Timex Twitter account. He originally wasn't intending to make many bets, but he wanted to have a platform to have some fun and call out players selling action at absurd prices. The response from the community blew McDonald away.

"Within a week, it had like 1,000 followers," McDonald said. "People were messaging me... I never anticipated it would get as popular as it did."

With that popularity, though, came potential scrutiny. Veron Lammers, a friend "well-versed in the gambling industry", alerted McDonald to the perils of what he was doing: essentially acting as a bookmaker. McDonald, 23 at the time, decided he shouldn't take any chances and quickly opted to shut down the unofficial book, at least publicly.

Behind the scenes, the wheels spun for at least one associate of McDonald's. Lammers, who has now become McDonald's chief business partner in PokerShares, is "one of the best no-limit deepstack players in the world" according to Timex. He accepted an opportunity to provide McDonald some coaching and the two have become friends.

"Why don't you actually try to get it licensed?" Lammers asked. "Why don't you actually try to turn this into a business?"

McDonald's only answer was "laziness," so Lammers, who had experience setting up international companies, agreed to take on most of the behind-the-scenes duties if McDonald took charge of things like pricing and marketing on the front end. For the past 18 months, the two have worked to form what's become PokerShares.

The workload has become intense in recent weeks leading up the site's launch and McDonald arrived at the PokerStars Championship Bahamas with a new outlook on the game. Where he would once be looking to ship some of the biggest tournaments in the world with his trademark glare etched on his features, McDonald now throws on a PokerShares shirt and sees an opportunity to market a hit venture and relax away from the office.

Normally a familiar face in the $100,000 Super High Roller, McDonald skipped the event because he didn't feel ready for that caliber of competition. It's perhaps a surprising admission for a man who has built a ledger that makes him one of the true legends of both online and live poker. He's cashed for over $13 million live alone, with much of his success coming in some of the very nosebleeds he bypassed here.

"I feel like my game is fairly rusty right now," McDonald admitted. "I just don't think I'm very likely to bring my A-game or even my B-game."

McDonald estimates he's played about 200 hands of poker in the past four months and lost countless more potential playing hours working on PokerShares and other projects. The results bear that out: McDonald cashed for just $544,361 live in 2016, only his second year in the past seven scoring less than $1 million.

Now, he's here at PokerStars Championship Bahamas, which also happens to be the first big event with listed prices on PokerShares. McDonald himself was the primary force shaping those prices, which gives an interesting look at how at least one person ranks the relative abilities of poker players.

For example, the $25,000 High Roller lists 23 players that users can invest in. At the top of the list price-wise are Fedor Holz and Christoph Vogelsang each with a mark-up of 1.5 — it costs €1.50 to buy €1 of action. On the other end of the spectrum, recreational players Paul Newey and Bill Perkins are listed at 1.07. Prices are listed in euros, as PokerShares doesn't accept action from American customers due to U.S. sports-betting laws.

McDonald knows he won't be making any friends in some cases when players see themselves priced down, something he said was "inevitability."

"I'm sure there are some acquaintances and people in my friends circle that aren't thinking so highly of me," he said. "With all of the people that I actually care about, I don't think it'll have any sort of effect. It's purely business."

Another aspect of PokerShares that McDonald already sees the community getting excited for is the chance to sweat players like Daniel Negreanu and Erik Seidel. Such players, enriched by their vast poker success and having built a strong circle of friends, have no need to sell action to the general public.

That option now exists thanks to PokerShares.

"You would not believe how many people there are who just bet €1 on Daniel Negreanu in the $100K," Timex said. "It gives the viewer and fan at home an opportunity they've never really had before."

McDonald said buzz and response has been huge. Even people outside the poker and gambling worlds have responded. While enjoying a drink at a bar recently, a representative of a venture capital company recognized McDonald and asked if McDonald would get in touch with his employer.

Company emails have been inundated with résumés and job applications — PokerShares isn't currently hiring — from people who see an opportunity with a company that has upside.

Given all that, and McDonald's commitment to a large role with the company moving forward, he can envision a future where he's no longer a professional poker player.

"I don't know how big this will get," he said. "But, if it gets to be pretty big, I could see poker becoming my secondary thing and this being my primary thing."

Tags: Mike McDonald

01-10-2017 16:16 UTC-4

Quads Versus Full House

Webjoker

Level 11 : 800/1,600, 200 ante

Andjelko Andrejevic (photo from an earlier event)

We just caught the showdown portion of an interesting hand, but the winner of the hand was kind enough to fill us in on the details after he was done stacking his newfound chips.

Andjelko Andrejevic, who won the 2015 ACOP High Roller back in 2015 and won a Deepstack Extravaganza event and the WPT Amsterdam in 2016, opened the button for 3,500. Brazilian player Fabio Sousa called from the big blind.

Sousa check-called 4,000 on and check-called another 6,500 on the turn before he checked a third time on the river. Andrejevic bet 18,000 and Sousa shoved for 45,000 or so. Andrejevic was quick to call with his for rivered quads. Sousa just stood there aghast and open mucked his .

Player	Chips	Progress
Andjelko Andrejevic	155,000	74,100
Fabio Sousa	Busted

Tags: Andjelko Andrejevic Andy Andrejevic

01-10-2017 16:14 UTC-4

Dawley Done For

MrPaulSeaton

Level 11 : 800/1,600, 200 ante

Jessica Dawley has busted out of the PokerStars Championship Bahamas Main Event here on Day 2.

Betting to 3,400 preflop from the hijack position, she got one caller to a flop of . Checked to, Dawley continued for 2,800 and again got a call.

On the turn of , Dawley bet 5,300, and her opponent check-called again. However, on the river, her bet of 5,000 was check-raised all-in. Only having around 7,00 let, Dawley called and flipped over her hand of , but her opponent held and had flopped a set. Dawley headed for the door.

Tags: Jessica Dawley

01-10-2017 15:13 UTC-4

Todd Peterson and Bryn Kenney Eliminated in the Same Hand

Chad Holloway

Level 10 : 600/1,200, 200 ante

Bryn Kenney's Main Event lasted less than a level.

He moved all in for his last 6,500 from middle position and Diego Gomez called from the cutoff. Todd Peterson, one hand removed from doubling Taha Maruf, then three-bet to around 27,000 from the button. Both blinds folded and Gomez called to put both Kenney and Peterson at risk.

Peterson:
Gomez:
Kenney:

The flop was gin for Gomez, and he scored the double elimination after the appeared on the turn followed by the on the river.

Player	Chips	Progress
Diego Gomez	100,000	49,900
Todd Peterson	Busted
Bryn Kenney	Busted

Tags: Bryn Kenney Diego Gomez Todd Peterson

01-10-2017 15:05 UTC-4

Update Your Own Chip Count Using the PokerNews MyStack App!

Webjoker

Level 10 : 600/1,200, 200 ante

PokerNews has activated the MyStack App for this event, allowing you to directly adjust your chip counts in our live reporting blog using your iPhone or Android phone.

You can download the app for iPhone or Android now to get started. Then, create a new PokerNews account or update your current one to start updating your status immediately. Your followers can see all the live action that you're involved in.

Click here to download the My Stack app for iPhone, or click here to download the My Stack app for Android.