Nguyen holds on to significant chip lead as Day 2 of the main event final table ends
Day 2 of the World Series of Poker main event final table ended Monday night with just three players still standing and Qui Nguyen holding a massive chip lead with 58 percent of the chips in play for the second day running.
Five players reassembled at the Rio in Las Vegas late Monday afternoon for the start of Day 2 action, with the goal of playing down to the final three; the next elimination – at fifth – would be worth $1,935,288.
The five survivors initially played cautious games, but the railbirds did not have to wait long before the action gathered momentum with big pots; around the fourth hand the table's low stack, Michael Ruane tangled successfully with Nguyen and managed to double his chip stack.
Just three hands later Vojtěch Růžička, who had manoeuvred into a position second only to Nguyen, found himself in a confrontation with Nguyen and Gordon Vayo in a 108 million chip pot, which he lost.
Crippled, he was eliminated in the next hand by Nguyen and headed for the exit and a fifth finish pay-out of $1,935,288.
Three hours of stressful, fast and competitive poker later it was Michael Ruane under the gun after an unsuccessful encounter with Cliff Josephy had depleted his chip stack; he tangled with the biggest stack on the table, Qui Nguyen, and lost leaving with a fourth position cash of $2,576,003.
Having reached the goal of the last three players, officials allowed play to continue for another 12 hands but ultimately made the call to bag the chips in one of the shortest WSOP main event Day 2s on record.
The three finalists are all from the United States and their chip counts look like this:
Qui Nguyen 197,600,000
Gordon Vayo 89,000,000
Cliff Josephy 50,000,000
They will return to the table late afternoon local time Tuesday to decide who takes home the biggest prize. First place is worth just over $8 million; second $4,661,228 and third $3,453,035.
Online Casino News Courtesy of Infopowa
