MORE BIG NAMES DEPART THE WPT CHAMPS (Update)

27 April 2007

And Hellmuth is strong among the leaders

Days 2 and 3 of the World Poker Tour championship at the Bellagio in Las Vegas have continued to entertain spectators with great poker and the antics of many of the top stars in the game.

479 players took their seats for the five blind levels of Day 2, this from an original starting field that numbered 639 hopefuls. By the end of Day 2 there would only be 218 players left in the competition, for which players have anted up a $25 000 buy-in for a crack at the almost $4 million main prize.

The action was hectic, with players being eliminated at an average rate of around one every one or two minutes. Among those who hit the rail early and departed were JJ Lui, David Williams, Todd Brunson, Gavin Smith, Victor Ramdin and defending champion Joe Bartoldi. Also leaving the contest were Mike Matusow, Josh Arieh, Thor Hansen, Joe Beevers, Barry Greenstein, Maureen Feduniak, Ted Lawson, Daniel Negreanu, Marcel Luske, Mimi Tran, John D'Agostino, Harry Demetriou and Dan Heimiller.

Previous WPT champ Roland De Wolfe headed the leaderboard at the finish of play with 535 000 in chips, a fitting follow-on to his truimph in the Irish Poker Open earlier this month. Right on his heels was ten-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, stacked at 528 100, and in third position was the phenomenal 21 year old Canadian Internet poker player Sorel Mizzi.

Also surviving were Paul Wasicka, Patrik Antonius, Ram Vaswani, Chip Reese, Carlos Mortensen, Sam Farha and Phil Ivey... and the attention grabbing 21 year old Anna Wroblewski - still in the top 15.

But by the end of the day the list of big guns who had bitten the dust included Joe Hachem. Johnny Lodden, Vanessa Rousso, J.C. Alvarado, Huckleberry Seed, Scotty Nguyen, Jim Worth, Alan "BoDogAri" Engel, Jeff Shulman, Johnny Chan, Kathy Liebert, Erick Lindgren, Bruno Fitoussi, Dan Alspach, Allen Cunningham, John Phan, Doyle Brunson, Dewey Tomko, Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott, Young Pham, Gus Hansen, Haralabos Voulgaris, Mike Gracz, Bill Chen, David Plastik, Padraig Parkinson, Juha Helppi, Mark Newhouse, Stuart Patterson, David Sklansky, Jason Lester, Chau Giang, and Mark Seif.

The latest from Vegas is that 54 players remain in the WPT Championship, with Phil Hellmuth still holding the lead with a stack worth $1 820 000 ahead of his nearest rivals Raymond Davies ($1 700 000) and Loi Phan ($1 420 000)...and last year's WSOP champion Jamie Gold, together with top player Phil Ivey are out of the contest.

Roland De Wolfe, Thomas Wahlroos, Carlos Mortensen, Scott Fischman, Paul Wasicka, Bill Gazes, and Patrik Antonius are still in the game.

Falling by the wayside in the latest day's play were: Joe Sebok, Liz Lieu, Phil Ivey, Isabelle Mercier, Freddy Deeb, Jennifer Harman, Erica Schoenberg, Billy Baxter, James Van Alstyne, Sam Fahra, Ram Vaswani, Humberto Brenes, Barry Boatman, and Ross Boatman. And the remarkable run of newcomer Anna Wroblewski has come to an end - she has lost her chance to win that $4 million main prize.

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