148 players bought into this event which, along with seven re-entries, boosted the prize pool to a massive $3,626,000.
This year’s High Roller champion will pocket $1,134,930 and a bracelet from Shamballa Jewels. 16 players in total will get paid and will earn a minimum of $58,020.
Yunis Satellites Twice, Finishes as Chip Leader
It was a rollercoaster day for Nick Yunis who finished the day leading the 56 players who advanced to Day 2.
Yunis originally earned his way into this event via satellite, only to bust in the third level of the day. Luckily for Yunis this is a re-entry tournament and he was able to find and win another satellite, get back in the event and stack 407,100 chips, good for the overnight chip lead.
Yunis is trailed closely by multimillionaire venture capitalist turned poker player Bill Perkins who brings 345,700 with him to Day 2.
Big Names Abound on Day 2 Leaderboard
As expected from a tournament with a price tag equal to most economy cars, the overnight leaderboard is stacked with big names.
In the top ten we find EPT and EPL winner Mike McDonald, recent WSOP Europe main event champion Elio Fox, former world champion Jonathan Duhamel, WSOP bracelet winner Keven Stammen and WSOPC circuit ring winner Andrew Lichtenberger.
Moving down the list of the 56 remaining players the stacks get a little smaller, but the star power does not.
Chino Rheem, Anton Makiievskyi, Nicolas Chouity, Team PokerStars Pro Pierre Neuville, Amit Makhija, Jen Harman, ElkY, Ville Wahlbeck, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Matt Marafioti and Barry Greenstein are just a few of the big names still in.
Broken, Beaten, Busted
Over 90 players dusted off their $25,000 buy-in before action was halted for the night.
Included in that group was recent $100k Super High Roller winner Viktor “Isildur1” Blom, who was busted by end-of-day big stack Bill Perkins.
Also out is Canadian Will Molson, who has finished in the top two of this event for the last three consecutive years. Molson won this event in 2011 and finished runner-up in 2010 and 2009.
Joining Blom and Molson on the rail was former world champ Carlos Mortensen, recently single Vanessa Rousso, Erik Cajelais, Ludovic Lacay, Sean Getzwiller, Tom Marchese, Martin Finger, Phillip Gruissem, Jason Mercier and reigning world champion Pius Heinz, to name a few.
Tonight’s Top Ten List
Here is the full top ten leaderboard as we head into Day 2:
Nick Yunis 407,100 Bill Perkins 345,700 Taylor Paur 317,100 Keven Stammen 301,500 Chris Hunichen 271,000 Terje Augdal 270,000 Mike McDonald 267,500 Andrew Lichtenberger 248,000 Jonathan Duhamel 226,300 Elio Fox 216,800Visit www.pokerlistings.com