On a heads-up completed board of J♠7♥K♠7♠4♥, Andrew Tran led out for 600,000 and the action was on Alejandro Jauregui.
After thinking it over for nearly a minute, he decided to pay it off but was then shown the bad news when Tran tabled K♣K♥ for the top full house. Jauregui quickly mucked and the big pot was awarded to Tran.
Fortunately for Jauregui, he was able to double up the very next hand when his ace-queen bested the ace-ten of John Ross.
After an open from Alejandro Jauregui to 175,000, Neil Vora moved all in for around 750,000. The action folded back to Jauregui to made the call to put Vora at risk.
Neil Vora: 5♣5♥
Alejandro Jauregui: 10♥10♣
Vora would need a lot of help to stay alive, and he picked up some extra chop-outs on the turn K♠J♦Q♥9♠ turn, but the river was the brick 2♣ to send him out in 15th place.
Another long day of poker is in the books as the Main Event field has been whittled down to the final 14 after the maximum amount of play. Leading the way is Rakan Abusaleh who bagged up 6,750,000 after taking down several huge pots towards the end of the night. In second is Ryan Freeman with 6,200,000 and rounding out the top three is Trung Pham with 6,100,000.
Day 2 was slated to play down until the final table, or until the end of level 27, whichever came first. It seemed at first that it would be an early day, as players were busting left and right well into the afternoon. But once it got down to the last two tables, the action began to really slow down as pay jumps began to take effect.
Starting the day on top was Kassim ‘KC’ Panjwani, but after a series of unfortunate hands, he was out in 44th for $4,440 right after the second break. During this time it was Andrew Tran who ran up a big stack and was the first player to crack 2,000,000 before the first break. He then used this momentum throughout the day until he was moved to a different table and had some big run-ins with Pham.
After the players returned from their third break, it was Pham who was the dominant chip leader, followed by Maxx Holland and Joel Trevino.
Some notable players that met their end today were David Shaw (99th- $2,210), Kris Burchfield (42nd-$4,440), Vladyslav Shovkovyi (30th-$5,110), and Ray Henson (24th- $7,390).
The reigning champ Tommy Zhang also had a good run in this event but ultimately met his end today when he ran his flopped top pair into the aces of Kyle Arora and exited in 20th for $8,740.
Thomas Zhang
The final 14 players will return tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. and will resume play at the start of Level 28 with blinds at 50,000/100,000 with a 100,000 big blind ante. They will then play until there are nine players left, at which point they will move over to the stream table to play out the remainder of the tournament on the Champions Club live stream on YouTube.
Day 3 Chip Counts
Rank
Player
Chips
Big Blinds
1
Rakan Abusaleh
6,750,000
68
2
Ryan Freeman
6,200,000
62
3
Trung Pham
6,100,000
61
4
Dora Coyle
5,475,000
55
5
Brant Jolly
4,200,000
42
6
Alejandro Jauregui
3,750,000
38
7
Joel Trevino
3,200,000
32
8
Trevor Lewis
3,025,000
30
9
Maxx Holland
2,850,000
29
10
John Ross
2,520,000
25
11
Jonathan Vuong
2,175,000
22
12
Mohammed Bassam
1,950,000
20
13
Andrew Tran
1,700,000
17
14
Michael Bahls
1,650,000
17
All players returning are guaranteed a minimum payout of $12,830, but of course, they will all be eyeballing the $201,000 that is sitting up top.
As always, stay tuned in with PokerNews as we will be bringing you all of the action until a champion is crowned here in Houston, Texas, so don't go anywhere!
