Home / Poker News July 2011 / 2011 WSOP Main Event – Day 2A Report
2011 WSOP Main Event – Day 2A Report
Posted by: Mark Baldwing - Wed, 2011-07-13 07:45
Day 1b of the 2011 WSOP Main Event saw the survivors of the first 3 day 1 flights reconvene to play further down towards the money bubble. 2,031 players bellied up to the tables, among them Phil Hellmuth, Shaun Deeb and eventual end of the day chip leader Aleksandr Mozhnyakov.
The story of the day was that of Phil Hellmuth who apparently had no idea he was playing on day 2a and not day 2b. He locked himself into his hotel room, and hotel security – alerted by Mike Matusow – had to break in on him to get him to join the action. When he reached his table, his short stack had already been blinded down to 7.6k chips. Hellmuth had had an excellent Series thus far, and his feel-good run continued on day 2a. Instead of just giving up, he began to grind his short stack, and he chipped up little by little, until he caught a massive double-up. He shoved all-in on an A,J and an opponent made the call with K,J. The board fell J-high, giving both players a pair of Js. Hellmuth’s superior kicked proved crucial, and thus he finished the day with 64.9k chips in his stack.
Other players who managed to work their way up from short-stacks were Lisa Hamilton, the winner of the 2009
WSOP Ladies’ Event, and Sarah Bilney.
Shaun Deeb did well too. He started the day with about 62k chips in his stack, and by the time the action was called, he’d managed to build up a stack of 294k. He worked his way up gradually, then caught a couple of big pots to really boost his stack.
Aleksandr Mozhnyakov was the one who finished the day with the largest stack. He already had 277k chips after the dinner break, but by the end of the day, he had amassed almost 500k. Ha managed to double up nicely once when he picked up pocket rockets and an opponent called his all-in with pocket Js.
5 levels were played on Day 1a, at the end of which 822 players were left in contention.
Guillaume Darcourt had a great day too: he finished 3rd in chips. Dan Shak, John Cernuto and Eli Elezra finished on healthy stacks too.
