On Wednesday, the World Poker Tour Five Diamond World Poker Classic continued at the Bellagio. With a few extra entries and reentries, the player pool topped out at 503 players, and after another five levels of play, the chip leader of the 176 remaining players is WPT Champions Club Member Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi. Having bagged 272,600 chips, he is no stranger to success at the Bellagio. Last May, he finished third in the Season X WPT World Championship, pocketing $424,618 for his efforts.
WPT Five Diamond Day 2 Top 10 Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Michael Mizrachi | 272,600 |
| 2 | Frank Rusnak | 255,900 |
| 3 | Arthur Morris | 242,000 |
| 4 | Warwick Mirzikinian | 232,200 |
| 5 | Ravi Raghavan | 211,300 |
| 6 | Chino Rheem | 209,000 |
| 7 | Joseph Elpayaa | 207,000 |
| 8 | Vanessa Selbst | 202,000 |
| 9 | Alex Phahurat | 198,600 |
| 10 | David Belalch | 196,600 |
Unsurprisingly, Mizrachi was mercilessly aggressive en route to becoming chip leader. In the final level of the evening, with the blinds at 500/1,000/100, Roland Israelashvili, who recently joined Mizrachi at the 2012 Poker Players Championship final table, opened to 2,700 from early position. Mizrachi three-bet to 6,200 from the blinds, Israelashvili called, and the flop fell 
. Mizrachi led out for 3,000, and Israelashvili called. The turn was the 
, Mizrachi led again – this time for 12,600 – and Israelashvili tank-called. The river was the 
, and Mizrachi slid out 100,000, which was more than enough to put Israelashvili all in.
Israelashvili released his hand, and Mizrachi took down the pot without a showdown.
Several notables failed to survive Day 2, including Marvin Rettenmaier, Xuan Liu, Tommy Vedes, Taylor von Kriegenbergh, Ashton Griffin, Maria Ho[/b], Dan Fleyshman, and Daniel Negreanu. Fleyshman was one of the last players to enter the tournament, but at the start of Level 8, he was eliminated in a three-way all-in. With the blinds at 300/600/75, Freddy Deeb limped in, Kenna James raised to 2,400, Fleyshman called, and Mizrachi called as well. Deeb back-raised all in for 26,000, James reshoved, Fleyshman called all-in, and Mizrachi mucked.
James: 
Fleyshman: 
Deeb: 
The 
flop gave Deeb a set of nines, and he held as the turn and river came 
, 
, respectively. Fleyshman was eliminated, while James dropped below 60,000 chips. Deeb shot up to 75,000.
Negreanu, who fired five bullets in the tournament, flopped a set of jacks in Level 10. According to his Twitter account, Kid Poker opened with 
and was called by a player in the small blind. The flop came 
, and all the money went in the middle. His opponent held 
, Negreanu failed to make a full house, and he was eliminated.
Something strange occurred during the last half hour of play on Day 2 – there was a dispute over a bet amount on one of the tables, so the tournament clock was paused. Unfortunately, there are no details about the hand provided by the WPT Live Updates team, but it allowed Tom Marchese to relieve himself.
Day 3 of the WPT Five Diamond will resume on Thursday at 12:00 PST. Keep it locked in to PokerNews.com for daily recaps from Bellagio.
Data courtesy of WorldPokerTour.com.
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