After 6 levels of play today in Day 2 of the Main Event, the 397 players still in are taking a 45 minute dinner break.

Michael Khan, who had just a little over 500,000 at the last break has amassed an impressive 1,075,000 stack. Ryan Boudreau is hot on his heels with 1,035,000. And rounding off the millionaire club is Danny Freitas with exactly 1,000,000 chips.

With still 4 levels to play before we break for the day, we all know that anything can happen.

Here is the current chip leader board as well as a few photos from level 16.

The players in the Main Event just took their first break since the tournament turned into a freezeout – when late registration closed at the beginning of level 13. During the most recent break following level 14, we surveyed all 60+ tables to try and find all of the players that are playing over 500K stacks at the current time.

The chip leader so far is Alexandru Baron with 800,000 in chips, followed closely by Alon Messica, Eric Afriat, and Noeung Troeung – and every single one of these players is extremely dangerous (to the rest of the field) if he has a stack.

A few other highlights on the leaderboard – Jaered Besse is a recent event champion here at Playground Poker Club, having won a tournament somewhat similar to this one this past winter. Also – there’s Mike Sexton in the 500K and up club as well…

Play is now wrapping up in level 14 and since registration closed, the number of players at the table has plummeted to just 632 left in the tournament. This is still a lot of poker players, but the writing is on the wall: be prepared to build a stack or you won’t last very long.

We came across a hand type that is being replayed frequently in this stage of the tournament. John Palmer raised to 6,500 from middle position and action folded to Alexander Wong, who chose to shove with his small stack. John made the call and the cards were exposed:

Alexander:
John:

The board cards were of no use to Alexander, and nothing changed for the better on the turn or river and Alexander shipped his final stacks across the table to John.

Here are some shots of the action in level 14.

The first break of Day 2 has come and gone, and with the end of the break comes the end of the late registration period in the tournament – from here on out, it’s a freezeout tournament!

This is a very dynamic period in the event because some players will calm down, knowing that stack preservation is a key when there are no more re-entries – while others will use the threat of taking players out to build up a big – or usually, an even bigger – stack of their own.

The final number of entries was 2,401, and even considering all of the entries and re-entries today, there are just 782 players remaining. This number will start to drop much more quickly than before, since no new entries are joining in.

The chip leader at this point is Alon Messica who is playing just a hair under 700K in chips. Danny Freitas is still among the leaders as well, and a new name on the leaderboard is none other than Eric Afriat.

In any tournament that features seating redraws while there are many active tables – like in any multi-day tournament – the redraw often produces some table lineups that are particularly interesting. Sometimes it’s due to colourful personalities being seated together, sometimes because players may have won similar events in the past, sometimes it’s just a pure experience overload…

Take table 24, for example. Ruben Perceval and Rodney Ramalho are two local players who have probably been meeting across the felts for over a decade – and both have recently had breakthroughs in tournament play during the past 2 years. They’re seated side by side – and across the table is Nick Nickoletopoulos, who has been going deep in everything and, like Rodney and Ruben, is a local tournament stalwart, always around deep in big events in the area.

Here are some photos of the action to begin Day 2 in the WSOP-C Playground Main Event. Entries continue to pile in today – the total now is up to 2,326 with just over one hour more of late registration/re-entry.