Rakan Abusaleh Lead Players into Day 3! Players Return at 2 p.m.!
Another long day of poker is in the books as the Main Event field has been whittled down to the final 14 after the maximum amount of play. Leading the way is Rakan Abusaleh who bagged up 6,750,000 after taking down several huge pots towards the end of the night. In second is Ryan Freeman with 6,200,000 and rounding out the top three is Trung Pham with 6,100,000.
Day 2 was slated to play down until the final table, or until the end of level 27, whichever came first. It seemed at first that it would be an early day, as players were busting left and right well into the afternoon. But once it got down to the last two tables, the action began to really slow down as pay jumps began to take effect.
Starting the day on top was Kassim ‘KC’ Panjwani, but after a series of unfortunate hands, he was out in 44th for $4,440 right after the second break. During this time it was Andrew Tran who ran up a big stack and was the first player to crack 2,000,000 before the first break. He then used this momentum throughout the day until he was moved to a different table and had some big run-ins with Pham.
After the players returned from their third break, it was Pham who was the dominant chip leader, followed by Maxx Holland and Joel Trevino.
Some notable players that met their end today were David Shaw (99th- $2,210), Kris Burchfield (42nd-$4,440), Vladyslav Shovkovyi (30th-$5,110), and Ray Henson (24th- $7,390).
The reigning champ Tommy Zhang also had a good run in this event but ultimately met his end today when he ran his flopped top pair into the aces of Kyle Arora and exited in 20th for $8,740.
The final 14 players will return tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. and will resume play at the start of Level 28 with blinds at 50,000/100,000 with a 100,000 big blind ante. They will then play until there are nine players left, at which point they will move over to the stream table to play out the remainder of the tournament on the Champions Club live stream on YouTube.
Day 3 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rakan Abusaleh | 6,750,000 | 68 |
| 2 | Ryan Freeman | 6,200,000 | 62 |
| 3 | Trung Pham | 6,100,000 | 61 |
| 4 | Dora Coyle | 5,475,000 | 55 |
| 5 | Brant Jolly | 4,200,000 | 42 |
| 6 | Alejandro Jauregui | 3,750,000 | 38 |
| 7 | Joel Trevino | 3,200,000 | 32 |
| 8 | Trevor Lewis | 3,025,000 | 30 |
| 9 | Maxx Holland | 2,850,000 | 29 |
| 10 | John Ross | 2,520,000 | 25 |
| 11 | Jonathan Vuong | 2,175,000 | 22 |
| 12 | Mohammed Bassam | 1,950,000 | 20 |
| 13 | Andrew Tran | 1,700,000 | 17 |
| 14 | Michael Bahls | 1,650,000 | 17 |
All players returning are guaranteed a minimum payout of $12,830, but of course, they will all be eyeballing the $201,000 that is sitting up top.
As always, stay tuned in with PokerNews as we will be bringing you all of the action until a champion is crowned here in Houston, Texas, so don't go anywhere!