16 Remain in $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship; Salem and Daher Dominate
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Day 2 of the 2018 World Series of Poker Event #27: $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship has come to an end after ten hours of play and 16 hopefuls remain in the hunt for the elusive gold bracelet and payday of $414,692 that comes along with it. Before the cards got back in the air, another nine players opted to enter the competition to create a field of 166 entries, which resulted in a prize pool of $1,560,400 that was shared among the top 25 spots.
A duo with more than one million in chips sits at the top of the leaderboard after Day 2 in Laith Salem (1,456,000) and Albert Daher (1,300,000). Their combined stack sizes represent 33% of the chips in play, nearly double as many as third-placed John Hennigan (687,000) and Iraj Parvizi (620,000).
Salem's best result at the WSOP is a 5th place in the 1998 Main Event for a payday of $190,000, while Daher has already racked up more than $3 million in cashes at the live poker tables. The third in Lebanon's all-time money list comes fresh off a career-best score of $716,211 in May 2018.
Other notables still in contention in a field filled with some of the biggest names in poker are the WSOP bracelet winners Randy Ohel (571,000), Carol Fuchs (562,000), David "Bakes" Baker (559,000), Jean Gaspard (405,000), Anthony Zinno (237,000) and Robert Mizrachi (111,000). A second woman has reached Day 3 in Katherine Fleck, who will return with a stack of 186,000.
Day 2 at a Glance
Among the nine new entries before the start of play were such big names as Brian Rast, Phil Ivey, Stephen Chidwick, Luke Schwartz and 14-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth. However, of all late entrants, only Mike Gorodinsky reached the money and bowed out in 19th place for $15,229 in the penultimate level of the day.
Other big names that busted without anything to show for include Daniel Negreanu, David "ODB" Baker, Marco Johnson, Cliff Josephy, Jeff Lisandro, Chris Ferguson, Shaun Deeb,Benny Glaser, John Monnette, 2016 champion Jason Mercier, and Ian Johns. Josephy got it in with a ninety-eight in a Razz hand against Stuart Rutter and the Brit had an eighty-seven already. Josephy failed to improve and hit the rail.
David Benyamine's stack was chopped up by Andrew Barber's full house and Michael Noori's nut low in an Omaha Hi-Lo hand and John Monnette's eight-seven draw in Razz failed to get there against the made nine-eight of eventual chip leader Salem. Soon after, Mercier and Ivey busted shy of the money and Salem's rise to the top started in the last four levels of the night.
On the money bubble it took 15 hands to determine the last player to leave empty-handed and it was Scott Cole that ended up as the bubble boy. After a series of hits to his stack in quick succession, Cole called it off drawing dead on sixth in a Razz hand against the made seven-five of Robert Campbell.
In the remaining three and a half hours of play, big names as Jean-Robert Bellande (26th place, $15,229), Andrew Barber (25th place, $15,229), Stuart Rutter (21st place, $15,229) and Joey Couden (18th place, $15,229) ran out of chips. Ryan Miller became the last casualty of the night to redraw to the last two tables and that set up the remaining field of hopefuls for Day 3. All 16 remaining contenders have $17,677 locked up for their efforts.
The action will recommence on Thursday, June 14th, 2018, as of 2 p.m local time with blinds of 6,000/12,000 in Hold'em and Omaha games, the limits will be 12,000/24,000. All Stud games will feature an ante of 3,000 and a bring-in of 3,000 with the same limits.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be on the floor to provide all the action and PokerGO will also host a live stream for one of the summer's flagship events as the 2018 World Series of Poker continues.