A look back at Day 23 of the 2011 WSOP: Mercier wins 2nd bracelet

After 35 events we now have two players that have won a 2011 WSOP bracelet who had previously won a WSOP bracelet, John Juanda and Jason Mercier. On Day 23 we also saw two tournaments get underway, and two other tournaments finish their Day 2’s -although both look destined for a date with the Hard-Stop Rule on Thursday.

Event #35: $5,000 PLO 6-Handed, Day 3

Jason Mercier is now a 2-time WSOP bracelet winner after defeating a very tough field in the $5k PLO tournament. Mercier has now surpassed the $6 million mark in career tournament earnings, and I almost spit out my coffee when I saw that he still only 24!

1.       Jason Mercier - $619,575

2.       Hans Winzeler - $383,075

3.       Steven Merrifield - $239,100

4.       David Chiu - $156,628

5.       Joseph Ressler - $105,967

6.       Michael McDonald - $73,965

Event #36: $2,500 No Limit Holdem, Day 2

With 39 players still remaining in Event #36 you can pretty much mark this one down as a victim to the Hard-Stop Rule on Day 3. Here is a look at the Top 10 chip counts:

1.       Thomas Miller - 1,500,065

2.       Mikhail Lakhitov - 981,000

3.       Alexis Bouchiouane - 846,000

4.       Ed Sabat - 613,000

5.       Yun Fan - 524,000

6.       Edgar Delatorre - 450,000

7.       James Dylan - 446,000

8.       Steven Watts - 428,000

9.       Kevin Eyster Lafayette - 403,000

10.   Alessio Fratti - 402,000

Event #37: $10,000 HORSE Championship, Day 2

With 23 players still in the hunt for one of the most coveted WSOP bracelets this tournament has all the marks of spilling over into a fourth day. Heading into Day 3 it’s 2006 Main Event 3^rd place finisher Michael Binger sitting atop the leader-board, but there is some serious poker firepower lurking farther down the leader-board:

1.       Michael Binger - 742,000

2.       Fabrice Soulier - 560,000

3.       Daniel Ospina - 532,000

4.       Jacobo Fernandez - 526,000

5.       Ram Vaswani - 505,000

6.       Shawn Buchanan - 479,000

7.       Tommy Hang - 440,000

8.       Fu Wong - 398,000

9.       Kyle Loman - 388,000

10.   John Monnette - 325,000

12.   Erik Sagstrom

13.   Chau Giang

14.   Max Pescatori

17.   Joe Cassidy

21.   Tom Dwan

Event #38: $1,500 No Limit Holdem, Day 1

At the conclusion of play on Wednesday night a mere 320 of the 2,192 original entrants remained in the hunt for the WSOP bracelet in Event #38. A number of big name pros were able to survive the elimination-fest, including Bryan “Devo” Devonshire, Melanie Weisner, and Sam Trickett, all of whom are in the Top 10 on the leader-board heading into Day 2.

Event #39: $2,500 Pot Limit Holdem/Omaha Mix, Day 1

The half PLO, half Pot Limit Holdem tournament is one of the newer poker variants spread at the WSOP, and attendance was way up this year -606 in 2011 compared to 482 in 2010! At the end of the day it was David Williams sitting atop the leader-board:

1.       David Williams - 137,700

2.       Mitch Schock - 121,600

3.       Ashkan Razavi - 115,000

4.       Scott Clements - 108,700

5.       Adam Junglen - 90,000

6.       Tyler Patterson - 77,800

7.       David Lestock - 76,200

8.       Lee Grove - 76,100

9.       Sean Grover - 72,000

10.   Sergey Altbregin - 71,300

All results courtesy of www.wsop.com