Steady As It Goes

Bellagio Cup VI Day 2 Recap

It is not often a tournament sees so much consistency at the top of the leaderboard but Day 2 of the Bellagio Cup saw the same four names at the top for almost the entire five levels of play.

Paola Martin was steady on Day 2 and it was a flopped nut flush vs. not one, but two flopped sets that put her near the top of the leaderboard with a stack of 290,800.

Guillaume Darcourt, who started the day at the top of the chip counts, never dropped out of the top five.  Already with a WPT win under his belt at Bucharest, Darcourt seems poised to make another run with 378,000.

Jordan Morgan came into the day with 75,000 but quickly jumped into the top five.  He got a big boost later in the day when after a Q-8-5 flop his opponent committed 180,000 chips into the pot.  Morgan, with a set of eights took down the massive pot and never looked back.  Morgan ends the day just short of the number 1 spot with 431,300.

Joseph Miceli has also been a pillar of consistancy staying within the top three all day before finally taking the chiplead late in Level 5. He will come into Day 3 with 440,000.


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Extended registration provided an interesting twist as players continued to buy in through out the day.  The strategy proved to have mixed results as some like  Daniel Alaei and Scott Seiver both registered and thrived today, ending with stacks of over 200,000. Unfortunately for most that chose to come late, the pressure of accumulating chips quickly proved to be their downfall. Prahlad Friedman, Haralabos Voulgaris, Mclean Karr, Chino Rheem, Dario Minieri (among others) all registered late but were eliminated early.

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Tomorrow registration will continue to be open until the end of the first level of the day.  For anyone that comes last minute, they will start with a full chip stack of 40,000 which will be about 20 big blinds. Rumored to possibly make an appearance are Chris Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth and Phil Ivey.   

Be sure to join us tomorrow at 12pm for Day 3 action.  It will be a marathon for players who make it to the end of the day as the schedule shifts from five levels to seven.