Brian Rast Absolutely Destroys Day 2
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Wow, what a huge day of poker. It started off fairly exciting, but it only got more and more riveting as the night went on. Tonight can officially be known as the Brian Rast Show. But that’s the end of the night, so let’s go back to the beginning of the day.
It all started with 514 players hoping to make it through to Day 3. By the time it was all over, only 33 remained and will return to tomorrow to fight it out for a spot at the final table.
Of the returning players today, just 342 would finish up with any cash for their effort. Some of those who fell short of making it into the money include Chris Bjorin, Steve Zolotow and Eli Elezra.
A few of those who were able to scrape through with a min-cash were the likes of Terrence Chan, Isaac Haxton and Angel Guillen. For a full list of payouts, be sure to take to the Event 9 payout page.
As the players hit the rail one by one, it was becoming clear that the pro to amateur ration was getting quite skewed. At one point there was a table that featured enough pros to scare anyone. In fact, Table 433 had over $23 million worth of career tournament winnings at one point sitting at the felt. A rail of observers grew and grew as the field was stacked with as many familiar faces as a much larger buy-in event.
Late into the night less than ten tables remained and we recognized a large majority of those players as having had big results in the past. One of those players still in contention was Liv Boeree, however that wouldn’t last for long. The end of Boeree’s tournament was a very unlucky one and something, which we are sure she will be having bad dreams about tonight.
Another player who may not sleep well tonight is James Akenhead. Unfortunately, Akenhead felt the wrath of a man who simply could not be stopped. And here we are back to the man they call Brian Rast.
Rast held the chip lead for most of the evening, with Ryan Olisar and Scott Seiver the only players to get close to his gargantuan stack. Rast was relentless throughout the night, crushing players all over the felt to see himself in contention to take down his third World Series of Poker gold bracelet. Just scroll through our blog and you will find a dozen instances of Rast taking down big pots. It was truly amazing to watch and we look forward to seeing more of it tomorrow.
Of the 33 players who will join Rast, Olisar and Seiver at the tables tomorrow, Jonathan Duhamel, Greg Mueller and Ari Engel are just some of the notables with a great chance of going all the way. Don't rule out the likes of Paul Wasicka, Amanda Musumeci and Daniel Idema either though, as they have the skills and enough chips to scare.
Be sure to check in with us from 1:00 PM tomorrow as Event 9 plays down to a final table. PokerNews will be felt-side all day long, so don’t miss it.