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Adrian Passfield is a lucky man.
After finding aces against ace-king-times-two earlier in the day for a triple up, he got his whole stack in again. This time he was in bad shape with 
against pocket nines. But lo and behold! Two aces dropped on the flop, and he doubled up to 23,000 this time.
Chris Bjorin is like limescale, he's a nightmare to remove.
But JC Tran arrived with some Cillit Bang today as he's earned himself the scalp of the Swedish veteran.
We didn't see the hand, but last year's sixth place finisher definitely won't be repeating that feat.
A pretty hefty pot had formed by the river of the 
board when Leo Margets, in the big blind position, bet out 10,100. JC Tran eyed her up for just the briefest of moments before deciding it wasn't worth it and folding.
Margets upped her stack to 130,000 or so. Tran isn't in any trouble either - he's well above average on 90,000.
Paul Zimbler is feeling better again after taking down a four-way pot with a flop bet minutes after folding to a Mike Matusow river bet.
In the first hand he was heads-up with Matusow and facing an 11,000 river bet with the board reading 
. Zimbler looked in pain as he came to a decision to fold. Matusow said he held ace-queen with the 
.
The next hand Zimbler and three others saw a 
raised pot flop. It was checked to Zimbler on the button and his 2,825 bet was good to take the pot down. He's on 28,000 right now.
We just caught the tail end of the action, but the ESPN cameras were rolling for the duration of this hand, so we'll likely find out the rest of the story later.
When we walked up to the table, there was a board of 
, and it was heads up between two big stacks. Phil Ivey had checked, and Nicolas Levi made a bet of 7,600, apparently the leading bettor the whole way. Ivey, though, is awfully skilled in the ways of pokering. He stuck in a check-raise to 22,000 straight, and Levi paid it off.
Ivey tabled (just the nuts) and raked in a pot of well over 50,000 chips. That vaults him all the way up to about 145,000 now, slightly overtaking Levi in the process.
Chris Moorman, who got an early double up with 
against James Mitchell's 
(and should probably be thanking Pokernews' own Gloria Balding for buying him an alarm clock so he would arrive on time) opened to 1,600 with Heather Sue Mercer and Hoyt Corkins making the call.
Jennifer Tilly, now sitting in the departed Jeff Lisandro's seat reraised to 6,000 and both Moorman and Mercer folded. Corkins had other ideas, and the made the call to see a 
flop.
Corkins now checked to Tilly who bet 7,000 which seemed to satisfy Corkins enough that his hand was no good.
Faraz Jaka has seen more pots than Bill and Ben here on Day 2. Every time I pass his table he's involved in the action, and the last hand was of no exception.
Having called a bet of 10,000 on the turn of a 
board, Jaka found himself facing an all in of 18,575.
The man with his tournament life on the line was Bryn Kenney, a cucumber cool young gun from the States who finished 28th in this year's WSOP Main Event for $255,242.
After much deliberation, Jaka made the call, but was chagrined to see Kenny turn over 
.
Victory shot Kenney up to 75,000, whilst Jaka dropped to approximately the same figure.
Dominic Kay opened to 1,400 in the cutoff and Steven van Zadelhoff called on the the button before Jonathan Aguiar made it 5,500 from the small blind. Back to Kay, who made it 13,300; van Zadelhoff folded, but Aguiar five-bet all in for another 23,200 on top.
Kay now huffed and puffed for a while before announcing, "This sucks." After just a minute or two he called the clock on himself, looking most agitated. "I'm so bad," he said mostly to himself by the looks of it, "This is so standard."
Eventually, to no-one's surprise, he folded.
Kay - 40,000
Aguiar - 50,000
Steven van Zedelhoff is up to 150,000 after "Squeezing with kings" as he described it. The chips all went in on a queen high flop with his opponent, Carlos Mortensen, holding king-queen.
Day 2 is a full level old, and for some, the day is already over.
John Juanda, Tommy Vedes, Martin Kabrhel, Adam "Roothlus" Levy, Neil Channing, Dan O'Brien. We could keep going if we so chose, but that at least gives you a taste of some of the notables we've already loved and lost today.
Notables fill the top end of the leaderboard as well, however, and it looks like start-of-day chip leader James Mitchell is still out in front after one level. Nicolas Levi shot all the way up close to 200,000 in the early going, but then he decided to tangle with Phil Ivey. That doesn't usually work out well, and Levi will have to settle for a still-very-healthy 135,000 or so at the break. That chip difference is now in Phil Ivey's stack, and he's started his day off well. We have him at about 145,000 at the break, and that puts him in the top three overall with about 170 players left.
We'll get some more firm counts here when the players step out of the room. They'll be back in twenty minutes for another level of poker, and we'll do the same.
