Day 2 Ends With Final Table Set
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Day 2 here at the Rio had the appearance of any other no limit hold’em event, but that image was quickly shattered as players dropped at a rapid pace today. With 110 players making it through day 1 only 9 made it through the end of day 2. The day consisted of tables constantly being broken and players being scattered around the room. The no blinds and only antes structure of this tournament seemed to bring in a lot of eliminations. Players were set to play 10 levels or down until 9 people were left. The rapid pace of this ante only structure allowed for 9 players to be reached with a level and a half of play to go, setting up our final table.
Play did eventually slow down once the final 18 players took their seats. The final two tables allowed for a select few to exploit the structure and climb up the counts while players such as Garth Arnason, Lorenzo Sabato, and Bryan Pimlot fell to the wayside. With those players falling, a handful started to rise to the top.
Mike Sowers continued to acquire chips and knock out players. In one of the larger hands Sowers managed to call the all in of Daniel Buzgon with pocket kings, unfortunately for Sowers his opponent had two aces. A king on the flop though threw the advantage in Sower’s favor and he scored big. Erick Lindgren also seemed to gain a lot of momentum as play wore on, but a small misstep against Eugene De Plessis caused him to lose a chunk of his stack. With that hand De Plessis was able to flirt with the chip lead, trading back and forth with Sowers. At the end of the day though De Plessis came out on top and bagged the most chips, 996,000. Sowers finished right behind him with 824,000.
Lindgren never seemed to recover from that initial loss against De Plessis and continued to sink. Eventually Lindgren found himself up against De Plessis again, and we saw more of the same results with Lindgren being eliminated in 11th place.
Jon Turner emerged as the tournament’s early chip leader, but a slew of beats and bad spots saw him exit during the middle of the day. Melanie Weisner also was forced to have a short day after Jon Turner hit a straight. Other players you won’t see on day 3 are Mickey Peterson, Dan O’Brien, Jeff Madsen, Mike Leah, and Thomas Conway.
Here is a preview of what things will look like for tomorrow's final table.
Final Table Chip Counts
| Seat | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seth Davies | 640,000 |
| 2 | Sameer Aljanedi | 167,000 |
| 3 | Justin Schwartz | 252,000 |
| 4 | Eugene Du Plessis | 996,000 |
| 5 | Mike McDonald | 205,000 |
| 6 | Greg Hobson | 608,000 |
| 7 | Mike Sowers | 824,000 |
| 8 | John Hayes | 229,000 |
| 9 | Harrison Gimbel | 325,000 |
Despite a handful of deep stacks, this ante only structure could allow for anything to happen. Stay tuned here to PokerNews for all your Event 49: $1,500 Ante-Only No-Limit Hold'em final table updates.