With 2,031 players starting Day 2a of the 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event on Monday –actually 2,030, since Phil Hellmuth thought he was playing Day 2b and almost was blinded off as he showed up extremely late—the Rio had another full house on its hands, with players filling both the Amazon and Pavilion rooms.

By the end of the night one of those rooms would be empty, with over half the starting field realizing their 2011 WSOP had come to an end. But for the remaining players Day 3 of the 2011 WSOP Main Event now awaits them on Wednesday; some hoping for nothing more than an “Allen Kessler min-cash” late Wednesday or early Thursday, while others have the $8.7 million that will be going to the winner, and poker immortality, on their mind.

A slew of big names were able to survive Day 2a, including the likes of Daniel Negreanu, Joe Cada, Sorel Mizzi, Annette Obrestad, Jason Mercier, and Phil Hellmuth, who despite his late arrival to a stack of under 7,000 chips managed to build it up to nearly 70,000 by the end of the night.

Falling by the wayside on Monday was last year’s champion Jonathan Duhamel, as well as Scotty Nguyen, Chris Moorman, Daniel “Jungleman12” Cates, Sammy Farha, Dan Harrington and Johnny Chan.

Here is a look at the chip-leaders from Day 2a:

1. Aleksandr Mozhnyakov – 478,600

2. Tuan Vo – 434,500

3. Guillaume Darcour – 410,500

4. Stephane Albertini – 401,100

5. Massimiliano Martinez – 355,000

6. Mike Sowers – 347,700

7. Chris Moore – 328,600

8. Biaggio Morciano – 306,800

9. John Renzi – 314.700

10. Joshua Gayton – 313,700

Results courtesy of wsop.com

Tags: Albertini, Amazon, Annette Obrestad, Chris Moorman, Dan Harrington, Daniel Negreanu, Falling By The Wayside, Gayton, Johnny Chan, Late Arrival, phil hellmuth, Poker Main Event, Sammy Farha, Scotty Nguyen, Sorel Mizzi, Sowers, Tuan Vo, World Series of Poker, World Series of Poker Main Event, WSOP Main Event

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 12th, 2011 at 8:04 am and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.