Day 2 Begins With Tyler Cornell and Jean-Robert Bellande
Day 1 started with 1,278 players and now we are down to just 189 players vying for the bracelet and enormous $689,739 first prize. Of those 189, Tyler Cornell leads the way with 172,600 and is followed closely by the story of the tournament thus far, Jean-Robert Bellande with 144,700. Bellande was up and down all day but clearly had a strong finish to Day 1 and all eyes will be on him as things get serious here on Day 2. With 126 getting paid, it won't take too long for the money bubble to burst and for the real bracelet competitors to separate themselves from the field.
With these large No Limit Hold'em tournaments it's seldom to have lots of big names at the top, especially at the end of Day 1, but we have plenty of them here starting on Day 2 including, as mentioned above, Jean-Robert Bellande who is second in chips (144,700), Tuan Le (126,000), Mohsin Charnia (126,000), Olivier Busquet (109,100), Chris Moorman (90,000), Dan O'Brien (87,200), Ayaz Mahmood (86,000), Lex Veldhuis (82,300), Melanie Weisner (80,000), David Baker (80,000), and Jake Cody (70,000). Our chip leaders to end Day 1 were Tyler Cornell (172,000), Jean-Robert Bellande (144,700), Victor Shuchleib (137,900), Steve Barshak (132,700), and Alexander Fitzgerald (132,600) and as we get closer to hitting the money bubble and beyond, it is always interesting to see whether these names can continue to grow their stacks or simply fall back into the ranks of those who came close but not close enough.
Cards will be in the air very soon here in the Purple Section of the Amazon Room and it won't be a slow start so be sure to stay tuned in to PokerNews.com