With the Bellagio’s late registration structure, that allows players to register up until level 8 on Day 2, as well as the tournament buy-in dropping from $15,000 to $10,000, the World Poker Tour Festa al Lago drew an impressive 335 entrants compared to the 275 entrants the WPT Festa al Lago drew in 2009.

Sitting atop the leader-board heading into Day 3 are two familiar names, Annette Obrestad and Matt Affleck. The two players stand virtually tied for the chip-lead with Affleck slightly outpacing Obrestad, 585,300 to 536,800 –there nearest competitor is Owen Crowe with 360,000 chips! Other notable players still in the hunt for the WPT crown include David Williams (6th place with 278,300 chips), Jeff Madsen (8th place with 269,200), Men Nguyen (9th place with 263,500), Vladimir Schemelev (11th place with 244,000).

A bit further down the leader-board are the likes of Matt Stout, Daniel Alaei, Barry Greenstein, Vanessa Selbst, Tom Marchese, Lyle Berman, David Singer, David Sklansky, Chris Bjorin, Daniel Negreanu, Hoyt Corkins, Gavin Smith, Maria Ho, and Allen Kessler to name a few.

With the lower buy-in the overall prize-pool dipped to $3,249,500, down from the $4,001,250 from last year. First-place prize-money also took a hit from last year, mostly from the smaller prize-pool, but also because the prize-pool will be spread amongst the top 50 finishers instead of just 27. This time around the winner will receive $831,500.

Day 3 will start Sunday at Noon local time, with 99 players returning to the Bellagio poker tables to play five 90-minute levels of the tournament.

Tags: Annette Obrestad, Barry Greenstein, bellagio, Daniel Alaei, Daniel Negreanu, David Singer, David Sklansky, gavin smith, Hoyt Corkins, Jeff Madsen, Late Registration, Leader Board, Level 8, Lyle Berman, marchese, Matt Affleck, Obrestad, Play Five, Poker Tables, prize money, Prize Pool, Vanessa Selbst, World Poker Tour, World Poker Tour Festa al Lago, WPT festa al lago

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