The field has reduced to 14 and the list of the remaining players is the who’s who in poker.
Only 30 players returned to Day 2 of the SHRB from the original 48 entrants. Daniel Negreanu started the day as the chip leader, after stealing the show on the first day and despite ending a less spectacular day, he’s still in the top five.
The former champion of the even, Rainer Kempe fell first after failing to hit his straight and flush draw. Rainer was followed by fellow Germans, Arne Ruge, and Koray Aldemir. The founder of PokerCentral, Cary Katz – who’s considered by many as one of the best non-professionals – fell next, when his top set ran into the rivered straight of Kahle Burns‘.
As promised, Phil Ivey is focusing more on the live tournament scene as in the past few years and he attended this event as well – jumping into Tony G’s seat at the last minute. However, unlike at the Triton Super High Roller Series in Montenegro, where he took down an event and finished 3rd in another one, Phil got the worst of it this time, when he put his last chips into the middle with a flopped straight, against the turned boat of Bryn Kenney‘s.
Justin Bonomo took down the biggest pot of the tournament so far and possibly the biggest threat at the same time. In the hand in question, Fedor Holz 3-bet from the cutoff and called the cold 4-bet against Justin in the small blind. Justin continued on the flop of 753 and Fedor came along. On the 3 turn, Justin fired another bet and called the raise of his opponents, to see the hit the river. Justin checked and Holz shoved for his remaining 465,000. After some tanking Bonomo made the call.
Fedor:
Justin: :Ac :Kc
Germany’s biggest tournament winner was busted in a flush-over-flush situation, leaving only Steffen Sontheimer and Chris Vogelsang on Germany’s sinking high-roller ship. At this point, Justin oversaw roughly around 20 percent of the total chips in play with 2,144,000. Stephen Chidwick finished the day with the second biggest stack, he accumulated 1,983,000, while Seth Davies and Christoph Vogelsang are third and fourth with 1,754,000 and 1,717,000 respectively.
Always humble, Vogelsang praised his luck after the day ended:
"You know, sometimes you feel, ‘OK, I played well.’ But often, the spots just come and you make a lot of good hands. It went really well today, so I’m happy."
When asked if the thought of becoming the first back-to-back winner of the event has any effect on him, Christoph replied: "Poker is just a game of chance and you need to approach every situation and think, ‘What are my two cards and how do I have to play this hand? How do I have to play my range?’ "We always have so many different thoughts, and if we think too much about stuff other than poker than we lose focus."
The players will return to the tables on Tuesday, May 29 at 12 p.m. (PDT) on the 6K/12K/12K level, you can follow the action live here!
(picture credit: Pokercentral)
