Here at the incredible Baha Mar resort in The Bahamas, 678 players came back for Day 2 of the $25,000 PokerStars Players Championship today. A few more bought into the action today, bringing the total number of entrants to 1,014. The marquee tournament's prize pool finished at an astounding $24,843,000. Whichever remaining runner takes the top spot will take home over $4 million dollars.
The players aren't quite in the money yet, but after six levels of play today, 255 runners remain in pursuit of the glory and massive cash prize that comes with a PSPC victory.
Sitting atop the leaderboard is Krasimir Yankov of Bulgaria with a stack of 1,002,000, which amounts to 167 big blinds for tomorrow's play. He's the only one over a million, though Philipe Pizzari Pinto from Brazil sits just behind him on the leaderboard with 965,000.
Today wasn't the day that dreams are made of for several big names. Those that saw their tournaments ended included the likes of Jerry Wong, Ryan Laplante, Adrian Mateos, Brock Wilson, Cliff Josephy, Bryn Kenney, Ben Lamb, Cherish Andrews, Ryan Riess, Alexandra Botez, Landon Tice, Jennifer Shahade, Michael Addamo, Xuan Liu, and Jonathan Little.
Platinum Pass qualifying hopefuls Amir Epstein and Jennifer Carter fell as well. They were joined by the defending champion Ramon Colillas whose run also came to an end.
As expected, though, many top names still remain in the hunt. Big stacks around the room include Christopher Moorman (685,000), Tommy Nguyen (642,000), Blake Bohn (554,000), Sean Winter (438,000), Fedor Holz (421,000), and Chris Moneymaker (404,000). PokerStars Ambassador Alejandro Lococo bagged an impressive 473,000. Of course, Jeremy Ausmus sang prayers to the poker gods recently, so he bagged 791,000 on the heels of that soundtrack.
Tomorrow's Day 3 promises to be as exciting as it gets. Players will start at Level 15 with blinds of 3,000/6,000/6,000. Players will reach the money, which means we'll have the chance to capture the adrenaline-inducing bubble play as players fight their way into the cash.
Follow along with us on our new Poker Instant page for real-time updates all throughout the day. We want you as close to the footage as possible.
See you tomorrow poker fans.
