Day 2 of the $3,800 World Poker Tour Choctaw Championship returned 190 players to fight for the top 76 spots that pay. Ten levels of play cut the field to 35 players and James Mackey edged out James Carroll for the lead.
“I run good for sure here,” Mackey said. “I ran really good today. I wouldn’t even say I played well today – I had it or coolered a bunch people. It’s a fun way to play.”
“Choctaw is a great stop,” he added. “I never sleep great during tournaments, but I’ll try to get a few hours at least.”
Mackey’s WPT resume speaks for itself, and we asked what else he would want to take away from here. The father, with a one-year-old with a baby girl on the way, replied bluntly with a laugh, “Prize money – that’s it.”
“My day was pretty smooth, and I made a lot of hands,” Carroll said. “I started off hot, cooled off a little in the middle and then finished hot again.”
“It was a fairly easy day,” Carroll added. “I think anyone would have finished with a lot of chips with my run today. I didn’t do anything special.”
“My goal is to win when I play and I’m very excited for a nice chance at it tomorrow,” he said.
The field is loaded with talent moving towards the big payouts. Adam Hendrix, Ryan Van Sanford, Anthony Zinno and Nick Pupillo all landed in the top half of chip counts. Erick Lindgren, Eric Afriat, Aaron Massey and Michael Wang return with more humble stacks.
One of the wrinkles about Choctaw is that this venue goes round-for-round on the money bubble rather than hand-for-hand. Still, only one player busted in nine hands across nine tables. Austin Lewis staked his tournament on 
and the pocket kings of Vladyslav Shovkovyi ensured every other player would get paid.
Chino Rheem made another deep WPT run and played nine levels and 50 minutes of the day. He was eliminated in 37th place when his up and down straight draw crapped out to Mackey’s ace high.
Allen Kessler (70th), Will Berry (59th), Andrew Moreno (57th), Jake Schwartz (52nd), Matthew Wantman (50th) and Jeremy Becker (41st) played most of Day 2 to earn a cash but won’t rejoin the field on Monday’s Day 3.
Jared Jaffee was one of the day’s earliest eliminations, Steve Buckner, Jesse Lonis, Ren Lin, Dan Sepiol and Frederic Normand were all eliminated before making the money.
Monday’s Day 3 gets cards flying at 11am with the goal of cutting the field to six players for a TV final table. They’ll pick up in a couple of weeks on May 30th to play down to a winner at the HyperX Arena at Luxor Las Vegas.
WPT Choctaw Championship – top 5 chip counts
| Place | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | James Mackey |
2,635,000 |
| 2nd | James Carroll |
2,475,000 |
| 3rd | Vladyslav Shovkovyi |
2,180,000 |
| 4th | Harrison Ashdown |
1,600,000 |
| 5th | Sebastien Aube |
1,600,000 |
You can find the full chip counts on the WPT website.
All photos courtesy of World Poker Tour – shot by Enrique Malfavon
