What started as an innocent enough pot turned into a raising war that has seen Toan Nguyen extend his chip lead even further to end the night.
Jeffrey Lennon raised to 26,000 in the cutoff and was called by Nguyen in the big blind.
The flop came and the fun began.
Nguyen started with a check and Lennon bet 17,000. The aggressive Nguyen then check-raised to 55,000.
Lennon came back with a raise to 130,000, but that still wasn't enough for Nguyen, who now made it 260,000.
Lennon went into the tank for a couple of minutes, and then shaking his head and looking visibly frustrated, he mucked his cards and sent the pot to Nguyen.
One key pot turned the tide for Toan Nguyen on Monday, and from that point, there was no looking back.
The Sacramento native finished the day with 1,890,000 and the overwhelming chip lead of the remaining 32 players, with no one else even over a million, or even holding half of Nguyen’s stack.
Charisse Case is the next closest with 935,000, while Michael Loncar sits third with 840,000. Day 1a and 1b chip leaders Lane Jacobson and Cornel Cimpan will carry top ten stacks into Tuesday’s final day of action.
End of Day 2 Top Ten Chip Counts
Place
Name
Chip Count
Day 3 Big Blinds
1
Toan Nguyen
1,890,000
126
2
Charisse Case
935,000
62
3
Michael Loncar
840,000
56
4
Anthony An
820,000
54
5
Joe Nguyen
820,000
54
6
Cornel Cimpan
775,000
51
7
Jeffrey Lennon
736,000
49
8
Lane Jacobson
644,000
42
9
Evan Maurer
590,000
39
10
Bryant Miller
580,000
38
The Key Hand and the Aftermath
Nguyen had been battling back and forth with Angela Jordison midway through the day, with Jordison holding one of the biggest stacks in the room. The duo’s clashes finally reached a crescendo when Jordison took a stand against Nguyen in a nearly million chip pot with Nguyen’s queens holding over Jordison’s jacks.
Jordison was unable to recover from that and was eliminated in 43rd place for $4,850.
Nguyen however put his newfound chips to great use, continuing to build before winning two more large hands at the end of the night versus Jeffrey Lennon, who had been in contention for the chip lead before running into Nguyen.
The Remaining Contenders and the Fallen
Among those who avoided the runaway train that was Nguyen to also advance to Day 3 were RunGood Ambassadors Tyler Patterson (570,000), Ray Henson (455,000), and Ben Ludlow (260,000). Brett Murray (570,000) and Arthur Tanimoto (545,000) will also take decent stacks into Tuesday.
Plenty of big names made the money but were unable to advance including Cedrric Trevino (33rd - $5,650), Darren Rabinowitz (38th - $4,850) Andrew Moreno (48th - $4,100) and Scott Stewart (61st - $3,550) to name just a few.
The Champion Will be Crowned Tuesday
The majority of the first-ever $1,000,000 guaranteed prizepool in RunGood history will be handed out on Tuesday with the winner collecting a massive $193,430.
Each of the remaining 32 players will take home at least $5,650, but they’ll all have their eyes on that six-figure first prize, the RunGood Contenders Series ring, and a seat in the RunGood Pro-Am at the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas later this month.
Play will resume at noon local time with level 19 which will see blinds of 10,000/15,000 and a 15,000 big blind ante.
Keep it right here with PokerNews for complete live reporting coverage until the champion is crowned here at the beautiful Thunder Valley Casino Resort.