Question: How do you run a major poker tournament and keep out the fish and donks that overpopulate WSOP events? Easy, run only a few satellites and bump the buy-in to 15 large.
Although the field might not be as large as it was the last time Festa Al Lago was part of the World Poker Tour in 2006, players wont seem to mind because an increased buy in has created a record setting prize pool for the event. The $15,000 tournament entry fee was paid by 368 players creating the biggest prize pool in Festa Al Lago history and certainly pleasing the top fifty finishers who will get to take home a piece of it.
Total Entries: 368
Total Prize Pool: $5,354,400
Places Paid: 50
1st: $1,411,015
2nd: $943,215
3rd: $506,245
4th: $373,010
5th: $266,445
6th: $186,510
7th: $133,225
8th: $106,580
9th: $85,260
10th: $63,945
11th-15th: $53,290
16th-20th: $42,630
21st-30th: $31,975
31st-40th: $26,645
41st-50th: $21,315
At the end of day two the leader board is full of well known poker names and there are just one hundred and four players remaining trying to duke it out for the nice healthy prize pool. Daniel Negreanu and Jennifer Tilley are among some of the top leader board players and Negreanu currently enjoys a chip lead over Cahail of about forty thousand chips.
Here are the top fifteen players at the end of day two and their respective chip counts:
1 Daniel Negreanu 513,100
2 Blake Cahail 467,500
3 Justin Bonomo 383,300
4 Nenad Medic 345,600
5 J.C. Tran 337,900
6 Jennifer Tilly 330,800
7 Joe Sebok 327,200
8 Jamie Rosen 321,200
9 Clemenceau Calixto 310,200
10 Matthew Stout 298,900
11 William Mietz 285,900
12 Brad Booth 280,800
13 Kasey Nam 278,300
14 Russ Boyd 276,200
15 Isaac Haxton 275,000