Chidwick Leads Final Three Tables
The $10,000 Pot Limit Hold’em Championship returned to Day 2 with 129 players as the march to the money was on. It took ten levels of play, but eventually the money was reached at 27. When play came to an end, only 27 players remained, with Stephen Chidwick emerging as the chip leader (697,000).
McLean Karr (593,000), Amir Lehavot (628,000), Jarred Solomon (447,000), and Jason DeWitt (447,000) sit atop the leaderboard. While notables Nicolas Levi (392,000), Robert Mizrachi (426,000) and Mike Matusow (85,000) will also be returning on Day 3 on the way to the final table.
The tough field in this Championship Event saw John Juanda, Jason Mercier, Eric Baldwin, Shannon Shorr, David “Bakes” Baker and Erik Seidel all eliminated during Day 2. The highest profile elimination had to be Daniel Negreanu. At the money bubble hand-for-hand play took 30 minutes and DeWitt scored the knockout of "Kid Poker."
However, perhaps the most heart-breaking bustout of the day came when Chris Oliver, who had spent most of the day in the chip lead, lost a monster pot and was eliminated a short time later. We didn't catch the betting, but we do know that Amir Lehavot and Oliver created a pot worth 640,000 on a flop of 
. Oliver had flopped top two pair with 
while Lehavot had the nut flush draw with 
. With the chip lead at stake, the 
spiked on the turn to give Lehavot the flush; however, Oliver could still boat up on the river with any queen or king. Unfortunately for the one-time chip leader, the 
blanked and he lost the massive pot.
Tomorrow the remaining 27 players, all of whom are in the money, will return with hopes of playing down to a winner. In all likelihood the field will play the required ten levels and reach the hard-stop time before that happens, meaning the final table would finish on Monday if need be. Join us tomorrow at 3 PM PST as the PokerNews Live Reporting Team brings you all the action from the $10,000 Pot Limit Hold’em Championship.