Kenny Hallaert Among Chip Leaders on Day 2 of Event #1: Casino Employees Event
It is time for the second day of the 2022 World Series of Poker and the first Day 2 of an event with Event #1: Casino Employees Event No-Limit Hold’em starting it's Day 2 at 12 noon local time at the new home at Bally’s and Paris Las Vegas.
This event indicates a booming 2022 WSOP ahead as 832 total entries were nearly double the number of entries from the 2021 WSOP. Of those entries, a total of 82 players will return to the felt at Bally's Ballroom Blue Section to play all the way down to the winner and dole out the first WSOP Bracelet of 2022 and the grand prize of $65,168 out of the $349,440 prize pool.
Of the 82 players who will be aiming for an even deeper run, the chip leader is Shaun Colquhoun who will be bringing a stack of 885,000 to the table today. He is closely followed by Arturo Jimenez who has 848,000 to make for the only two players who start the day with over 100 big blinds.
Event #1: $500 Casino Employees No-Limit Hold'em Top 10 Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Country | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shaun Colquhoun | United States | 885,000 |
| 2 | Arturo Jimenez | United States | 848,000 |
| 3 | Kenny Hallaert | Belgium | 695,000 |
| 4 | Jonaghan Liu | United States | 660,000 |
| 5 | Brandon West | United States | 656,000 |
| 6 | Kelli Phillips | United States | 613,000 |
| 7 | Kirby Brewer | United States | 588,000 |
| 8 | John Divecha | United States | 567,000 |
| 9 | Michael Murray | United States | 533,000 |
| 10 | Minkyun Kim | South Korea | 533,000 |
One of the prominent players still remaining is Kenny Hallaert (695,000), who is most known for his run to the 2016 WSOP Main Event final table. He brings the third biggest stack into the day and will be one of the stories to monitor as Day 2 unfolds.
Another story to watch is defending champion Jimmy Barnett (206,000) still being alive. He will be looking to go for the astronomically rare back-to-back bracelets in the same event.
The action should be fast and furious from the start with chips flying as the remaining players will aim to position themselves for a deep run to the final table and the bracelet. It is anybody's game and some of the other top stacks who will be looking to make their own noise today are; Brandon West (656,000), Kelli Phillips (613,000) and Austin Amoroso (465,000).
Play will start at 12:00 p.m. at Level 17 with blinds at 4,000/8,000 with an 8,000 ante. Action will continue all the way until a winner is declared.
Follow all the action here as the PokerNews Live Reporting team covers Day 2, as well as our summer-long coverage of The 2022 WSOP at Bally’s and Paris Las Vegas.
. Three players were in the hand, as defending champion James "Jimmy" Barnett bet 80,000 from early position into a pot of what looked to be about 120,000, John Divecha on his direct left folded and Brandon West called in the big blind. 
. West led-jammed all in and Barnett snap-called.
for the nut flush. Barnett saw the bad news and began to stand up as he showed the 
straight as his dream of repeating as Casino Employee event champion was dashed just like that early on day 2 thanks to the cooler.
. Mitchell had the 
but it was well behind the 
on the river to end his run and send the pot over to Divecha.
on the turn or the 
on the river, sending him to the rail. West is sitting at about triple the average stack with 2,550,000 in chips halfway through Level 22 and with 30 players remaining.
flop. The turn 
