Main Event
Day 2 Started
2012-13 World Series of Poker Circuit Event - Harrah's Cherokee
Main Event
Day: 2
Event Info
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
2012-13 World Series of Poker Circuit Event - Harrah's Cherokee
Prize Pool
$1,284,000
Entries
856
Level
33
Blinds
50,000 / 100,000
Ante
10,000
Official Start-of-Day 2 Chip Counts
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
401,400 | |
|
313,000 | |
|
312,300 | |
|
260,400 | |
|
254,200 | |
|
221,000 | |
|
219,200 | |
|
218,600 | |
|
215,000 | |
|
201,800 | |
|
|
199,600 | |
|
192,000 | |
|
191,500 | |
|
176,000 | |
|
175,500 | |
|
170,000 | |
|
161,600 | |
|
160,800 | |
|
|
160,500 | |
|
|
154,900 | |
|
|
154,100 | |
|
147,900 | |
|
|
143,500 | |
|
142,500 | |
|
142,400 |
201 return for Day 2 at Cherokee
It's a sunny Sunday morning in Cherokee, North Carolina where Day 2 of the World Series of Poker Circuit Main Event will be commencing about an hour from now. A total of 201 players survived out of the 856 entries in this $1,675 buy-in event, with Rick Hensley of Morganton, North Carolina returning to the biggest stack of 401,400 to start today's play.
That stack gives Hensley about five times the average at the moment, with Joe Stark of Lawrenceville, Georgia and George Zinaty of Charlotte, NC the only other players with more than 300,000 after one day of poker.
Next in line in the counts is three-time WSOP ring winner David Nicholson, with Kyle Cartwright, Claudia Crawford, Ken Aldridge, and Greg Raymer among the many returning to sizeable stacks.
That total of 856 entries makes the WSOP-C Harrah's Cherokee Main Event the fourth largest on the WSOP Circuit during the 2012-13 season. It also creates a whopping $1.284 million prize pool, with $250,380 of that reserved for the winner. The first-place finisher also will be earning a spot in the WSOP National Championship in May as well as a seat in the 2013 Main Event in Las Vegas this summer (the latter a special prize here at Harrah's Cherokee).
The top 90 finishers will be cashing, meaning just under half of those left will be making the money. That money bubble will probably be bursting later this afternoon, of which the many short stacks — and in truth, everyone still alive — are well aware.
Join us at noon ET as we continue our coverage here from Harrah's Cherokee at PokerNews.
Level: 16
Blinds: 1,200/2,400
Ante: 400
Cards in the Air
Level 16
: 1,200/2,400, 400 ante
The cards are in the air, and Day 2 is underway.
Kirk KO'd
Level 16
: 1,200/2,400, 400 ante
We unfortunately missed the action, but Tripp Kirk was unable to run up his 10-big blind stack, and he has been eliminated.
Jason Sandling has also hit the rail.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
Busted | |
|
Busted |
Chop Suey
Level 16
: 1,200/2,400, 400 ante
Noel Marsh moved all in preflop, and the action folded to Nilesh Choudhary who made the call. Marsh turned over 
, and let out a loud chuckle when Choudhary showed 
.
Neither player made a flush, and the two chopped the pot.
Balthis Busts Gouveia
Level 16
: 1,200/2,400, 400 ante
Following an opening raise by Elilton Gouveia from the small blind, Gordon Balthis pushed all in for 40,100 from a seat over, and after tanking for a couple of minutes Gouveia called the shove for nearly his entire stack.
Gouveia had 
and Balthis 
, and when the board rolled out 
, the kickers played and Balthis survived with a double up.
Crippled down to less than 1,000 on that hand, Gouveia was eliminated shortly thereafter.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
82,000 | 33,400 |
|
|
Busted |
Bazeley Rockets Up
Level 16
: 1,200/2,400, 400 ante
We arrived only to see the aftermath, but it was easy enough to deduce that Jacob Bazeley had earned a hefty double-up through Ben Armstrong. Bazeley had picked up 
, and the queen-high board had left his hand best versus Armstrong's.
The pair essentially switch stacks after that one, with Bazeley now pushing 150,000 and Armstrong down under 70,000.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
145,000 | 55,600 |
|
|
66,000 | -118,000 |
Gurney Gallops Into Lead
Level 16
: 1,200/2,400, 400 ante
Our start-of-day chip leader, Rick Hensley, began today by eliminating an opponent on just the second hand to push all of the way up to 460,000. But he quickly began to bleed chips thereafter, and just now suffered a major hit to his stack as Level 16 comes to a close.
Again we only arrived in time to catch the counting down and redistribution of chips, but it appeared Hensley had gotten involved from early position, then Larry Gurney had woken up with 
in the blinds.
Subsequently we learned that the chips had gone in on the 
flop with Hensley holding but 
for a gutshot straight draw. The turn was the 
and river the 
, and Gurney's aces had held.
The hand earned Gurney a more than 340,000-chip pot — likely the biggest pot of the tournament thus far — and good enough to catapult Gurney into first position early on Day 2.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
345,000 | 279,100 |
|
|
185,000 | -216,400 |