Mo vs. Selbst: Who Will Capture the Bracelet?
On Tuesday, 131 players paid $25,000 for their shot at a gold bracelet in Event #2: $25,000 Mixed-Max No-Limit Hold'em. That first night was played in a nine-handed format, and then the surviving 60 players returned on Day 2 for the six-max portion of the tournament. Just 16 of them made it through to Day 3, which was played out four-handed.
When the field was down to the final four, two heads-up matches were played out in the semifinals, which is where JC Tran and Al Decarolis fell to Jason Mo and Vanessa Selbst, respectively. Today, Mo and Selbst will return to play the final match where the winner will take home a $871,148 first-place prize and the coveted gold bracelet. Mo starts play with a near two million-chip advantage, with 5.86 million to Selbst's 3.96 million.
Even so, if Mo, who finished runner-up to Brian Hastings in the 2012 $10,000 Heads-Up Championship for $229,722, is to capture his first bracelet, he must defeat one of the game's best in Selbst, who is a two-time bracelet winner with over $9.6 million in career live tournament earnings. Making it tougher is the fact that Mo is apparently feeling a little under the weather.
As for Selbst, she overcame a 7-1 chip deficit to win her semifinal match. "Thank you all for all the support," she tweeted after the win. "Riding some good vices here and feeling great. Plus if karma exists then I'll win for sure!"
Selbst is also hoping to have two supporters on the rail as she asked the WSOP's Ty Stewart if dogs were allowed in the house. Stewart said it would be discussed in a meeting, so we'll have to wait and see if these two rascals will be on the rail (rest assured two other rascals — Doug "WCGRider" Polk and Ryan Fee — will be on the rail to support their man Mo).
Action is set to get underway at 2 p.m. local time, which is just over an hour from now. Join us then as PokerNews brings you all the action from the final match of Event #2: $25,000 Mixed-Max No-Limit Hold'em.