After a long 13-hour Day 2, the 361-entry field was cut down to just 18 players at the WPT bestbet Scramble in Jacksonville, Florida.
Though Joe Jordan practically held the chip-lead since bursting the bubble himself just after the dinner break, it was Nick Funaro (pictured above) who finished the day on top of the chip counts. Funaro will bring in a massive 2,250,000-chip stack (113 bbs) into Monday’s Day 3.
Joe Jordan was able to maintain his ridiculous stack through the end of the day and finished just behind Funaro in second with 2,050,000 (102.5bbs).
Meanwhile, in third place, is three-time WPT champion Eric Afriat, who will take 1,700,000 into Monday’s penultimate day. Afriat is one of just seven players to have won at least three WPT titles and has the chance to draw level with Darren Elias, should he claim the $347,850 top prize. 2024 has already seen Afriat score a win at the US Poker Open and a runner-up finish at WPT Choctaw, as well as making headlines by coming out worse in a huge hand against Barny Boatman at EPT Paris.
Eric Afriat is gunning for WPT title number 4.Francis Anderson (5th, 1,350,000), Day 1B chip leader Thad McNulty (9th, 885,000), 2024 WPT Prime Playground champion Yunkyu Song (10th, 830,000), 2015 WSOP Main Event champion Joe McKeehen (16th, 490,000), and WPT Champions Club member Tony Dunst (18th, 385,000) all had strong days and will all be in action on Monday.
Players like Nick Palma (21st, $13,700), Fred Paradis (25th, $10,900), Josh Reichard (30th, $10,900), Chris Conrad (37th, $9,100), and Raj Vohra (41st, $9,100) all reached the money but couldn’t survive the rest of the night.
Unfortunately for Brian Altman, Brad Owen, Christian Harder, Farid Jattin, Jake Schwartz, Michael Wang, Justin Liberto, Matthew Wantman, and many others, a cash wasn’t in the cards after being in the group of 124 players who started Day 2.
Play will begin on Monday at noon EST in Level 20 with the blinds starting at 10,000/20,000 with a 20,000 big blind ante. Blind levels were raised from 60 minutes to 90 minutes at the Day 2 dinner break and will remain so through the completion of Day 3. Play will conclude when the field of 18 is reduced to the official six-man WPT final table.
Images courtesy of the WPT
