With a $12 million first prize the action at the WSOP Main Event is picking up
Two of Ireland’s most experienced professional poker players have crashed and burned on day 2a of the WSOP in the Rio Casino, Las Vegas but the baton has been passed safely to a posse of young pretenders.
Padraig Parkinson and Andy Black, both with significant WSOP final table experience and strongly fancied to go deep in this year’s event, bit the dust on a day of dramatic swings that saw the first batch of 1600 players (day 2b beings today with another 1600 players) play down to 600 – just outside the money.
Dundalk man Paul McCaffery, one of the chip leaders at the end of day one, took a few hits but managed to hang in to the end of the day with 79,000 chips. Other Irish players putting in a solid performance included Joe O’Neill (50k), Andy Leonard (96k), Pat Griffin (88k) and Bobby Willis (30k).
Unusually, in a quirk of probability, three Irish players ended up playing at the same table and all put in robust performances with Dave Murray ruling the roost on 175k, John McGill on a healthy 118k and Ken Powell on a very playable 106k.
Many other big names fell by the wayside on day 2a including Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliot, actor Danny Masterson, the ‘mad genius of poker’ Mike Caro, Mickey Wernick and Julian Gardner.
Former World Snooker Champion Steve Davis is proving he’s just as competitive on the green felt as the green baize, ending day 2a with a respectable 50,000 chips.
Day 2b kicks off at 8pm Irish time with plenty of Irish and paddypowerpoker.com interest including:
Andrius Tapinas 55k (Paddy Power Qualifier)
Oliver Boyce 41k (Paddy Power Qualifier)
Rob Taylor 23k (Paddy Power Qualifier)
Thomas O’Neill 14k (Paddy Power Qualifier)
Steven Reeves 10k (Paddy Power Qualifier)
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