WSOP Event #46: Mark Tenner Leads Into Day Three

With 196 remaining starters on day two, the players were supposed to play down to a final table, but a whole 23 participants will come back for the last day where they will fight it out for $229,192 in prize money for first place. As expected, the serious action only started on the second day of this event, with almost half of the initial runners left.

A lot of big names were still in the running when the day started: Kelly Kim, Farzad Rouhani, Max Pescatori, Todd Brunson, Matt Glantz, Armando Ruiz, Shannon Shorr, John Juanda, Mike Matusow, Annie Duke, Mike Sexton and Steve Wong were just a few of those trying to make it all the way to the bracelet.

There were those to be eliminated early on, too: Barry Greenstein  (pictured left) was one of the usual short stacks to go to the rails at the beginning. Paul Parker was the lucky one to bust him and got a signed copy of his "Ace On The River" book.

Justin Smith was amongst the first ones to go, too, when his AQJ2 couldn't catch enough against the opposing AAT2 - Smith's two-pair queens and jacks on the river gave the opponent a Broadway straight.

Armando Ruiz on the other hand was one of the players to start out rather well on this second day. On a
board, his opponent bet out 1,000 and Ruiz raised to 2,000. Instead of
calling, the other player put in one chip too much and was forced to
make another raise to 4,000 - to which Ruiz put in a 4-bet. The
opponent called and called another bet on the river, only to muck when Ruiz tabled for the nut full house

In another notable hand, Todd Brunson was involved in a three-way pot. On the flop, the big blind led out and was called by Brunson and one other player. When it checked to him on the turn, Brunson bet out and was promptly raised. He called the raise and another bet on the river.

His opponent revealed - for what he claimed was a straight. When the confused Brunson revealed for a set of queens, the dealer pushed the pot over to Brunson, telling the protesting player "you have nothing".

Todd Brunson however busted just a few hands later in a pot against Max Pescatori. Brunson raised pre-flop and bet again on the flop. Pescatori called and when the turn came , Brunson barreled again. Pescatori woke up, though, and raised enough to put Brunson all-in.

Brunson made the call with for aces up and a bad low and it looked like we would see a chop against Pescatori's for a better low, but with the on the river the latter completed a straight and sent Brunson to the rails.

Mike Matusow (pictured left) had been on life support for a while when he finally managed to scoop a big pot and make it back up to an above-average 38,000. With this he was back in the game and could feature on one of the tougher tables of the day: Steve Wong and John Racener joined him in surrounding James Dempsey, who wasn't really happy with his position on that table.

Mike Matusow continued his run as he was able to double up to around 70,000. A bit later, he took down a pot against John Juanda with unimproved aces and could muster over 100,000 in chips - looking good as the bubble approached.

In the end, the "bubble babe" was found in the form of Marsha Waggoner who had to get all her chips in as an extreme short stack. Her lost out to Patrice Boudet's as he scooped the pot on the board.

Contrary to expectations, the pace of the tournament didn't pick up any notable speed after the bubble burst and a whole 23 players will be returning for the final day of this event. We can expect players like Mike Matusow and Mark Tenner to move the action along, while the likes of Jason Zimmerman and Max Pescatori were amongst the last victims of the day.