We caught up with the action preflop where Nicholas Katovsky had 3,700 in front of him, Kevin Song had 5,925 in front of him and a middle position player was all in for 21,100. Katovsky called the shove and Song, who started the day third in chips, said, “If you (Katovsky) didn’t call, then I was going to” before he folded.
Katovsky:
MP:
Katovsky was in good shape for the knockout and although the board ran out to give the middle position player king outs on the flop plus flush outs on the turn, he bricked the river and was eliminated as Katovsky won the pot. Song lost some chips but is still among the leaders in the field.
Over on table 292, the action folded around to Gianluca Speranza who raised to 1,000 from the cutoff; Annette Obrestad called from the big blind, so off they went heads-up to a flop of , which they both checked.
Obrestad then led out for 1,600 on the turn of the , but that was enough for Speranza to lay down his hand.
We can also report that Sergey Pevzner's seating card was in front of his empty chair as this hand played out. That can only mean that his tournament life has ended early.
We found a blind versus blind battle where Arnaud Mattern called a bet of around 800 from the small blind on an flop. Both players checked the on the turn and the small blind led out for around 2,500 on the river. Mattern tossed in the call and the small blind showed for just eight high and a stone cold bluff. Mattern flipped up for trips and picked up a few much needed chips to boost his short stack in the early goings of the day.
Welcome to the first Day 2 of the 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event. Returning for Day 2a are 2,031 runners still with the hopes of claiming their piece of the nearly $65 million prize pool leading up to the lion's share of $8,711,956. Leading the field into Day 2a is the overall chip leader Fred Berger, who emerged after Day 1a with a whopping 209,500.
Berger built his stack to nearly a 600% increase over the starting stack and is the only player to finish the Day 1s with over 200,000. He's trailed today by Shane Sigsbee with 182,600, Kevin Song with 163,325 and Christopher McClung with 162,375.
Berger's biggest claim to fame in poker comes from a WSOP gold bracelet win in 2002. That year, Berger defeated Chris Ferguson heads up in the $3,000 Pot-Limit Hold'em event to win the bracelet and $197,400. Also at the final table were Tom Schneider, An Tran, Tony Cousineau and Dennis Waterman. That gold bracelet isn't his only piece of WSOP jewelry. In May 2010, Berger won the $5,000 Championship Event at the WSOP Circuit Harrah's New Orleans stop. For that win, Berger earned a Circuit gold ring and the largest payday of his career worth $197,584.
Other notables returning today are Sebastian Ruthenberg, Ted Forrest, Olivier Busquet, Soi Nguyen, JP Kelly and Humberto Brenes. We've also got the captain of the Boston Celtics, #34 and The Truth Paul Pierce in the field today. It's going to be a great day of poker to say the least.
You can view the Day 2a table and seat draw in the post below in order to get a feel for who's seated where and with whom. One note on our coverage is that we will be culling the chip count page down to just the notables that we'll be tracking throughout the day. As the day progresses through the allotted five levels scheduled, more and more names will be added as we pick them up.
Play is scheduled again for a 12:00 PM PT start and things should begin promptly then. Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews as our Live Reporting Team provides all of the live coverage from the floor. Also be sure to check out the July 11th update below.
Here is the Day 2a table and seat draw that is available for viewing. To check out the draw, click here to view the PDF file. All 2,031 remaining players from Day 1a and Day 1c should be listed. Day 2a will take place on today (Monday, July 11, 2011) and begin promptly at 12:00 PM PT.
The Day 2b draw is available in this PDF file. Note that anyone listed with a chip count of "1" did not report their count or it was illegible by the World Series of Poker staff.
to give the middle position player king outs on the flop plus flush outs on the turn, he bricked the river and was eliminated as Katovsky won the pot. Song lost some chips but is still among the leaders in the field.
, which they both checked.
, but that was enough for Speranza to lay down his hand.
flop. Both players checked the 
on the turn and the small blind led out for around 2,500 on the 
river. Mattern tossed in the call and the small blind showed 
for just eight high and a stone cold bluff. Mattern flipped up 
for trips and picked up a few much needed chips to boost his short stack in the early goings of the day.
