WPT World Championship Day 2: Mizrachi On Top [Interviews]
The man they know as The Grinder is leading a field full of World Poker Tour champions after the second day of the WPT World Championship. You can see him being interviewed, along with Sam Trickett, by our reporter Tobias Block.
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| Jonathan Little has a healthy stack. |
Day 2 of the WPT World Championship ended with almost the same amount of players starting, thanks to the innovation of a late registration that goes all the way to Day 3.
A total of 135 players have bought in so far, and 95 remain after Day 2. This remaining field is still jam-packed with WSOP and WPT champions in this $25,000 buy-in end to the WPT season.
What happened on Day 2?
The leaders: Once again, it is a stellar field on top of the chip counts, with seven former WPT champions - Michael Mizrachi, Rinat Bogdanov, Guillaume Darcourt, Tony Ruberto, Matt Juttelstad, John Hennigan, and David Chiu - in the top eleven spots.
Leading the way is two-time WPT champion Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi, whom we caught up with for an interview (see below).
Also just outside of the top ten but maintaining a very solid stack is PokerStrategy.com coach (and former WPT champion) 
JonathanLittle.
Late registration: Unlike most $10k+ main events, the WPT World Championship has a super late registration policy, meaning that a lot of players chose to forgo playing Day 1 all together. Notable players who chose to buy-in on Day 2 included David Baker, Sam Trickett, Jake Cody, and reigning champion Scott Seiver. This helped increase the overall field size to 135.
Late registration will still be open for an early part of Day 3, and those players who choose to buy-in then will amazingly still start with 62.5 big blinds.
Hitting the rail: Plenty of big names were sent packing from the main event today including Daniel Negreanu, James Dempsey, Tony Dunst, Hasan Habib, Vanessa Selbst, Morten Christensen, and Sam Stein.
WPT World ChampionshipEnd of Day 2 Chip Counts |
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| Place | Name | Chips | ||
| 1st | Michael Mizrachi | 428,200 | ||
| 2nd | Rinat Bogdanov | 381,000 | ||
| 3rd | Guillaume Darcourt | 356,600 | ||
| 4th | David Steicke | 345,500 | ||
| 5th | Isaac Haxton | 313,500 | ||
| 6th | Tony Ruberto | 309,100 | ||
| 7th | Steve O'Dwyer | 301,900 | ||
| 8th | Ubaid Habib | 288,100 | ||
| 9th | Matt Juttelstad | 274,000 | ||
| 10th | John Hennigan | 265,500 | ||
| 11th | David Chiu | 264,300 | ||
| ... | JonathanLittle |
231,000 | ||
| - | Noah Schwartz | 163,900 | ||
| - | Brian Hastings | 160,000 | ||
| - | Sam Trickett | 150,000 | ||
| - | Scott Seiver | 144,200 | ||
| - | Marvin Rettenmaier | 143,900 | ||
| - | David Shallow | 108,100 | ||
| - | David Williams | 107,800 | ||
| - | Justin Smith | 100,000 | ||
| - | Martin de Knijff | 98,000 | ||
| - | John Juanda | 52,500 | ||
| - | Vanessa Rousso | 49,000 | ||
| - | Jake Cody | 35,000 | ||
| Blinds: 800/1,600/200 | Players: 95 (135) | Prize pool: TBD |
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Check out some exclusive interviews from Day 2 of the WPT Championship by our on-site reporter Tobias Block:
by Barry Carter
