Day 2 of the WPT500 has seen 2 levels pass already, and we are now nearing the money bubble as only 331 players remain. Hand-for-hand play will begin shortly, once we see 7 more eliminations.
Photographs from level 18:
The WPT500 is into the second level of Day 2, and a slew of eliminations has reduced the field down to 369 entries. At this pace we will be approaching the money bubble rather soon, as the top 323 players will be collecting a cash prize, with a cool $200,000 reserved for the eventual champion.
Photographs from levels 16-17:
Day 2 of the WPT500 has kicked off, and there has been a substantial amount of action in the first moments of play. The tournament has seen over 65 eliminations in the first half level of play, including the likes of Mike Sexton, Senthuran Vijayaratnam, Philippe D’Auteuil, Will Failla, Steven Kerr and Samuel Tsehai, amongst others.
Mike Sexton tried his luck by moving in his 32,000 stack from the cutoff, and was isolated by a player in the blinds. He tabled the better hand with 
, but was bested by 
on a 
board.
Photographs from level 1:
After a total of 10 starting flights, including 3 online flights on partypoker, the WPT500 is now ready to move onto the next phase: Day 2.
A total of 2,536 entries took place over the course of the last week, shattering the $1,000,000 guarantee boasted by the house. From this, 513 players have found a bag in Day 1 and are back at the felts in pursuit of the elusive tournament cash. Full prize pool and payout information will be published shortly, once the tournament staff finalizes the numbers.
The leaderboard heading into Day 2 is stacked with familiar faces, with local hero Mike Lafable at the head of the pack. His chip-leading 670,000 stack is closely rivalled by Jesse Johnston (635,000), while Shaan Siddiqui (595,000), Jonathan Bussieres (542,000) and Christine Do (521,000) all sit above half-a-million in chips. Full counts and seating draw for Day 2 can be found here.
Players are slowly taking their seats and cards will be in the air in a few short minutes. Follow the Playground Poker Club Blog for live updates and photographs throughout the day.
Best of luck to all of our Day 2 players!
Today’s turbo starting flight has just completed and another 96 players (according to the tournament clock) have booked their way into Day 2 in the WPT500. Players are now bagging up their chips, and these will rapidly be assigned to new tables for Day 2 and transported by tournament staff to the correct location to resume play.
We’ll be posting full results of today’s flight in addition to a revised seating draw with all of the new qualifiers included as soon as both are made available by tournament staff.
At long last, registration in the WPT500 has closed in the 10th and final starting flight in the event. There were a total of 286 entries (including 65 re-entries) in Day 1G, meaning that the full total over the 3 online and 7 live Day 1s was 2,536 – a very strong total that will add up to a prize pool that greatly surpasses the $1,000,000 prize pool that was guaranteed in the tournament.
The players in Day 1G are already down to their final few levels of play, which is set to wrap up at 2:15pm. Day 2, scheduled for 3:00pm, will likely get started a little bit later than that, but any delay won’t be too long.
