Daniel Negreanu - can he snag bracelet number five?
After another hard-fought day of pot-limit hold’em, day 2 has come to an end with just 9 players standing out of the original 71 who began the day.
Action started in the Amazon Room with Antonio Esfandiari as chip leader. However, as we all know, the wheels of fortune can turn at any moment in poker and Esfandiari found himself eliminated in 44th place. Other eliminations came swiftly in the early going, with the field dropping from 71 players to just 22 within the first 6 levels. Other notable eliminations include Terrence Chan (38th), John Juanda (18th), Nam Le (16th) and Steve Brecher (12th).
Interestingly, the final elimination of the night happened on the exact final hand of the last level scheduled for play. After losing nearly all of his stack to Bryan Pellegrino in this fateful hand, Thom Werthmann found himself all-in on the big blind. The hand was checked down by Daniel Negreanu and Jonathan Aguiar and Werthmann's eight-high was bested by Aguiar's king-high - knocking him out in 10th place.
Pellegrino will start tomorrow's final table as chip leader (790,000), however, all eyes are sure to be on four-time WSOP bracelet winner Negreanu, who will come in tomorrow 6th in chips (212,000). Negreanu won his last WSOP bracelet in 2008, when he took down the $2,000 Limit Hold'em event. Negreanu had a near-miss in 2009, when he lost out to Barry Shulman heads up in the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event. That being said, Negreanu will surely be playing his heart out tomorrow to capture his fifth bracelet.
Joining Negreanu will be two-time World Poker Tour champion Tommy Vedes, European Poker Tour title-holder John Eames and WPT title holder Jonathan Aguiar.
The competition is set to be fierce given the talent of the remaining field, to say the least. Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews for live updates as our remaining players duke it out until a champion is crowned. Play is set to begin at 2pm (PST).
