Day
has come to a close here at the 2013 World Series of Poker Main Event. The Rio was a jam-packed place for poker's greatest tournament all day long, with play taking place in all three rooms. At the end of the night, Mark Kroon finished on top of the leader board with 507,300 in chips.
Kroon began the day as the overall leader, and picked up right where he left off. In the first level of the day, Level 6, Kroon was involved on a flop of {K-Clubs}{6-Spades}{5-Clubs}. He led with a bet of 2,525, and one opponent called before a third player in the hand raised to 6,000. Both Kroon and the other player called, and the turn brought the {4-Hearts}. Kroon led again, this time for 10,025. Both opponents called. Then, on the {6-Diamonds} river, Kroon bet 10,575. The next player called before the third folded. Kroon showed the {9-Clubs}{6-Clubs} for trip sixes and won the pot.
Plenty of big name poker pros, celebrities and athletes were in the mix today including Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi, Jason Mercier, Phil Hellmuth, Nate Silver, Haralabos Voulgaris, Gerard Piqué and Roberto Luongo, just to name a few. Of that bunch, Ivey, Mizrachi, Hellmuth and Voulgaris were the ones that advanced.
Negreanu was eliminated in Level 7, the second level of the day, when he couldn't overcome and opponent's pocket tens with his {A-}{K-}. Mercier also lost with {A-}{K-}, losing out to a player's pocket aces.
Two former Main Event champions, Jamie Gold and Joe Hachem, were also eliminated on the day. Gold fell in a cooler situation against Gregory Liang where the 2006 champ turned a Broadway straight against Liang's turned full house. Drawing dead, it wouldn't be a repeat run for Gold.
In big-time athlete news, both Piqué and Luongo hit the rail today. Piqué hit the rail thanks to James Alexander, and Luongo was busted by Bryan Buonocore.
While many, many players hit the rail, plenty also survived. Several of those survivors thrived on the day, including Vladimir Geshkenbein, Victor Figueroa, William Reymond, Dirk Van Luijk, Ryan Olson, Chris Lindh, Jean-Robert Bellande, Glen Chorny, Ty Reiman and Stephen Chidwick.
All remaining players who advanced from Day 2a/b and Day
will return tomorrow at 12 p.m. for a combined Day 3
Chip Leaders
1 Mark Kroon 507,300
2 Vladimir Geshkenbein 467,500
3 Victor Figueroa 460,600
4 Dirk Van Luijk 455,000
5 William Reymond 405,000
6 Michael Mizrachi 394,600
7 Ryan Olson 364,700
8 Peter Kamaras 354,400
9 Yann Dion 348,200
10 Jean-Robert Bellande 320,900
Brit chip counts to follow