Jeff Madsen Leads the Final 23 Headed Into Day 3
On Tuesday, the remaining 170 players in a 550-player field returned for ten more one-hour levels of play in the 2014 World Series of Poker Event #35: $5,000 Eight-Handed No-Limit Hold��em. By the end of that time, which rolled into the early Wednesday morning hours, just 23 remained with Jeff Madsen and his stack of 661,000 leading the way.
Madsen, the three-time bracelet winner and 2006 WSOP Player of the Year, may be in the best position to make a run at the $633,341 first-place prize and WSOP gold bracelet, but there are some other big stacks nipping at his heels including Jay Conley (592,000), Brian Yoon (587,000), Josh Bergman (553,000) and Matt Davenport (543,000), who round out the top five.
Day 2 began with everyone looking to crack the money at the top 56; however, 114 players needed to fall before that happened. Among those to leave empty handed were Isaac Baron, Dan Heimiller, Fabian Quoss, Jennifer Tilly, Jason Mercier, Dan Shak, John Juanda, Amanda Musumeci, Philipp Gruissem, Igor Kurganov, Sorel Mizzi, and Dario Sammartino, who didn��t even show up for Day 2 and simply let his stack be blinded out.
As for Mizzi, he fell in frustrating fashion when his pocket kings were cracked by 2010 WSOP Main Event champ Jonathan Duhamel. After dinner, the field was down to 57 players and on the money bubble. It took awhile for it to burst, but it finally did when in Level 17 (2,000/4,000/500) when Madsen opened for a raise in middle position, and the big blind shoved all in for about 60,000. Madsen called, and after actions at the other tables had ended, the players revealed their cards.
Madsen: 
Big blind: 
Madsen's hand held up easily as the board came 
, and the remaining players were all guaranteed a minimum payday of $9,642.
From there, the in-the-money eliminations came quick and included Brent Wheeler (56th - $9,6420, Steven Kerr (47th - $11,141), Michael Mizrachi (44th - $11,141), Steven Silverman (43rd - $11,141), Eric Baldwin (38th - $12,847), Jonathan Duhamel (37th - $12,847), Aaron Massey (31st - $15,148), Dan O��Brien (28th - $15,148), and Nick Schulman (26th - $15,148).
While dozens fell a pack of notables managed to survive the fracas including Sam Trickett (456,000), Nick Grippo (413,000), Josh Arieh (385,000), David Peters (314,000), Sam Stein (289,000), Sylvan Loosli (285,000), Tony Cousineau (281,000), Mustapha Kanit (274,000), Dan Smith (138,000) and Olivier Busquet (118,000).
Day 3 action is set to get underway at 1 p.m. local time on Wednesday, and of course the PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be on hand to bring you all the action and eliminations through ten more levels of play. Until then, check out this video featuring some WSOP trivia: