Vijayaratnam Crushes Day 2b, Nearly Doubles Massive Day 2a Bag
Senthuran Vijayaratnam just has to hope he has saved up some of his run good in the partypoker 2018 Caribbean Poker Party $5,300 Main Event for something beyond a Day 2.
A day after he put in a great showing in Day 2a at Baha Mar Resort, bagging north of 16 million for a top-five stack, Vijayaratnam one-upped himself on Day 2b. Knowing he needed to play some high-variance poker and push any edge he could find since only his best stack would play on Day 3, Vijayaratnam steamrolled the competition en route to bagging 29,060,000.
That count puts him about 10 million clear of everyone else, a huge number with blinds set to head to 60,000/120,000/120,000.
The player on Day 2b who got closest to Vijayaratnam — close being a relative term in this case — was none other than super high roller veteran and partypoker pro Jason Koon. He put 19,685,000 in the bag. The run came at remarkable speed considering Koon was grinding a short stack for several hours leading up to the final stages. Then, his stack didn't just double but multiplied every time the PokerNews team took note of it.
"I register late, I make some hands," Koon said with a smile.
While bagging such a massive stack won't quite take the sting out of missing the money in the $250,000 Super High Roller Championship, winning this for $1.5 million* would surely make him forget all about it and he's put himself in about as good a position as he could hope for thus far.
Several other notables bagged eight figures, including Sam Panzica (14,535,000), Paul Tedeschi (14,035,000), Daniel Strelitz (13,310,000), Marc MacDonnell (12,500,000) and Adam Owen (12,325,000).
The most notable tournament milestone of the event thus far hit on Day 2b as registration finally ended after three starting flights and two late-registration periods on Day 2s. While the event did come up short of the $10 million guarantee with 1,815 total entries, it didn't miss by the massive number many expected, overlaying by a little under $1 million.
A total of 123 players advanced from Day 2b, and they'll join the 170 who bagged Day 2a for a field of 291 (two players bagged twice), as everyone will finally be playing in the same room for the first time. Most of those players will receive a payout as 223* are scheduled to make the money.
Come back to PokerNews at noon on Thursday for continued coverage of this tournament as the money bubble bursts and the latter stages of the event commence.
*An earlier version of this incorrectly stated 239 would be paid and $1.4 million was for first
against Eibinger's 
when we arrived, and the board ran out 
, so Eibinger sent over his 1.4 million.
