Coleman Trying for Second Title in Three Years, Trails Only Jiang With 12 Left
After three Day 1 flights and a 13-hour grind on Day 2, just 11 players stand between Maxx Coleman and a second victory in three years at WinStar River Poker Series $2,500 Main Event.
Back in 2015, Coleman got by far the biggest share of a three-way chop in this event, taking down $750,000, the biggest score of his live tournament career. The Kansas native followed that up with another strong showing in 2016 when he finished 32nd for $7,864.
Now, he finds himself in a great position to truly make it a three-year run for the ages near the Texas-Oklahoma border. Coleman finished Day 2 with a stack of 3,230,000, leaving him in second place after starting the day as chip leader. That represents more than 50 big blinds as the tournament heads to Level 27 (5,000/30,000/60,000).
However, a mountain of a chip stack stands in his way, belonging to Chengce Jiang. Jiang ran white-hot and finished with 6,675,000, more than a quarter of the chips in play.
It seemed every time Jiang got in a big showdown he held two aces. It started early in the day when he three-bet an open and had Charles Bass shove over behind him with king-seven of spades. Jiang snapped it off with aces to begin his climb. He busted a short stack with the blades and had one of the best stacks going into the final 27 redraw, and he found himself with aces again in a fortuitous spot.
This time, he three-bet a late-position open from DJ Alexander and they got stacks in on a ten-high flop, with Alexander revealing two kings for a tough cooler. Nobody even came close to catching Jiang after that monstrous win.
Coleman certainly isn't the only headliner remaining in the event. Anthony Spinella (2,560,000), Johanssy Joseph (1,715,000), two-time bracelet winner Ben Zamani (535,000), and Mike Dentale (475,000) are all still trucking along, though the latter pair are in dire need of an early double when Day 3 gets going.
That happens at noon Tuesday, with the final 12 players taking seats and battling it out for $400,032 in first-place prize money. Make sure you come right back to PokerNews as the field it whittled to a champion.
against the 
of Coleman. The flop was safe, but the turn brought some worries and the river finally put the nail in. Rodriguez would bust when the board finished 
.
against the 
of Otake. He flopped a queen and Otake couldn't improve.
and Otake hit the rail in 15th place. He will take home $26,624.
flop. Jiang fired in a bet of 300,000 and Alexander slid in 680,000 after thinking a bit. Jiang said he was all in and Alexander stuck his last 500,000 or so in there.
gave Alexander a fighting chance to survive the cooler with a monster double if he could find another heart on the end, but it was a harmless 
.
against his 
.
of Barlow. Otake flopped a jack and that was all she wrote for Bronstein and Barlow, who both exited the tournament in 50th (Bronstein) and 51st (Barlow) place.
and the two active players checked down. Carroll opened 
and Smith mucked. Nguyen excitedly showed 
for a boat and Java could only shake his head and show 
for the small side pot. Left with just a few thousand, he busted in short order.
against the 
and Massey was able to dodge the flush draw and earn the double up.
