The Final 16 Return at Noon in Event #15: $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em Championship
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After play-in round and the first two matches of the following bracket of the last 64 players, Event #15: $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em Championship at the 2019 World Series of Poker has whittled down a field of 112 entries to the last 16 hopefuls. They will return to the tables at the Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino at noon local time to likely play the money bubble round and one further heads-up match to determine the semi-finalists in this event.
Five former WSOP bracelet winners including Keith Lehr, who won this very event in 2015 after defeating Paul Volpe in the final duel, will be back to add another elusive gold bracelet to their collection. On top of that, a Heads-Up legend will also be among those to battle for the title as John Smith came through the play-in round and following two duels to advance to Day 2 as well.
Ben Yu follows up a very successful 2018 summer in Las Vegas with another strong start into the series and all eight players that win their initial duel on Day 2 are guaranteed a portion of the $572,800 prize pool, a min-cash is worth $31,151 and the winner will receive $186,356 for the efforts.
Defending champion Justin Bonomo was eliminated in the round of 64 and Adrian Mateos, who won his third WSOP bracelet in 2017 in this event against John Smith, didn't survive the play-in round this time around.
Round of 16 Bracket
John Smith will face Jimmy Dambrosio in his first match of the day and the winner will await Slovenia's Jan Lakota or Sean Swingruber in the round of last 8 in the top section of the bracket. Ricky Guan will battle with Cord Garcia and the final duel in the round of 16 of the top half features Austrian High Roller Matthias Eibinger and Zachary Clark.
The bottom half of the bracket kicks off with the duel between two-time bracelet winner Kristen Bicknell and four-time bracelet winner Brian Rast, and whoever advances will battle with either Richard Tuhrim or Ben Yu. The bottom half of the bracket concludes with the matches between UK's Simon Burns and 2015 champion Keith Lehr, as well as Ole Schemion and Jake Schindler.
Rast and Schemion had the longest rest of all remaining 16 contenders as they won their matches against Scott Baumstein and Caufman Talley in the first level of play, while Clark, Smith and Schindler wrapped up their round of 32 duels past 2.30 a.m. local time.
Each of the 16 finalists will return with a stack of 480,000 and initial blinds of 1,200-2,400. The levels will last 20 minutes each throughout the remainder of the tournament. Tune back in at noon right here on PokerNews to find out who makes the money and gets one step closer to the elusive gold bracelet.
. Brian Rast checked to Kristen Bicknell who bet 12,000 and Rast called.
and Rast checked again. Bicknell fired out another 12,500 and Rast still called to see the 
on the river. 
for two pair but it was no good against Bicknell's 
as she quickly advanced to the Round of 8.
, John Smith ripped all in after raising preflop and betting the flop. Jimmy D'Ambrosio thought for a moment and then made the call to put Smith at risk. 
for top pair and a straight draw while Smith showed up with 
. The 
paired the board on the river and D'Ambrosio held on to eliminate the heads-up specialist Smith in the Round of 16.
, trailing Tuhrim's 
, giving Yu aces and queens on the river to defeat Tuhrim.
turn and 
and Lehr took the lead with a pair of tens. The turn was the 
, leading Eibinger's 
, no help to Eibinger, ending his run in the Round of 8 for $31,151.