Cohen Leading Charge to Start Day 2 at Foxwoods
Welcome to Day 2 of the first ever World Series of Poker Circuit Foxwoods Casino Main Event. The 578 total entries who came out for Saturday's Day 1 exceeded the expectations of many, with 196 players managing to survive one of the two first-day flights. Of that group it was Aryeh Cohen emerging with the most chips of anyone after turning a starting stack of 20,000 into an even 180,000 during yesterday's action.
Cohen had made it up over 100,000 within the first eight of the 12 40-minute levels played yesterday, then not long after that won a huge ace-king versus pocket tens hand to push into the chip lead. The Brooklyn-based player then bolstered his stack even further before play concluded to claim first position heading into today's second day.
The earlier flight saw a larger turnout with 350 players taking a shot during the Day 1a session. From that group just 123 made it through, with Eric Rando ending the afternoon with the biggest stack of 143,100. Erek Gaines had been flirting with the 200,000-chip mark near the end of the flight, but lost a couple of pots during the final level to end in second position among the afternoon players with 133,600.
The evening flight then saw 228 entries, with a number of the Day 1a bustouts among that group. From that latter collection of players 73 survived, four of whom would end the night with bigger stacks than Rando's — Cohen, Igor Borukhov (163,300), Buck Ramsay (158,600), and holder of one WSOP Circuit ring Benjamin Reason (150,300). Like Cohen, the others all similarly scored big knockout hands during the final levels of play to end the night bagging their large stacks.
Other big stacks to start today include Luke Vrabel, David Singer (not the New York-based WSOP bracelet holder, by the way), Bobby Corcione (who took 21st at last summer's WSOP Main Event), and two-time WSOP Circuit ring winner Nancy Birnbaum. And there are a number of other notables with above-average chips still in the field, too, including two-time WSOP bracelet winner Andy Frankenberger, 2004 WSOP Main Event champion Greg Raymer, one-time WSOP bracelet winner Ylon Schwartz, and two-time WSOP Circuit ring winner Allen Kessler.
Late registration remains open up until the first hands are dealt at noon today, meaning we may well see a few more take seats and the total field size sneak back up over 200 players when play resumes. The schedule calls for three more 40-minute levels (through Level 16), then hour-long levels after that.
Meanwhile, come back at noon ET to join our full coverage of Day 2 of the 2012-13 WSOP Circuit Main Event at Foxwoods here at PokerNews.