Saturday was one of the busiest days yet at the Rio with 6 tournaments seeing action. Firstly, to the $1,500 HORSE which had just 3 players remaining at the end of a long day yesterday. In the end it came down Ylon Schwartz and David Chiu heads-up and after a huge pot in the Stud round, Schwartz had Chiu crippled and the former November Niner went on to win soon after, taking away $267,081.

There were 8 players left in the $2,500 4-Handed NLHE event at the start of play and they would play down to a winner as Timothy Adams beat Brendan Rubie heads-up. The head-up battle lasted over 3 hours before both players got the money in with top pair, but Adams Ace kicker was good enough to seal the deal and net him the bracelet and $392,476.

The massive field that started the $1,000 Seniors NLHE event has been whittled down to 33 at the end of play today. Leading them into Day 3 is Kevin DeTienne on 1.3M , nearly double the stack of his nearest rival. One name you’ll probably know is still in; Dennis Phillips has a shade over 500k. Not so fortunate were Marcel Luske and Humberto Brenes who succumbed towards the end of play. The biggest first prize to date at this World Series is what they’ll come back to play for tomorrow.

The stacked field in the $2,500 No Limit 2-7 Draw event played down to it’s final table today from the 66 that came back with chips. Among those who cashed were Erik Seidel, Jen Harman, and David Sklansky, but Brandon Cantu, Andrew Lichtenberger, Michael Mizrachi, and Eric Lindgren are still alive and kicking and coming back tomorrow with dreams of winning a bracelet. Most players have 30 big blinds so there’s still some room for play in this exciting format. They’ll be back at 2 pm tomorrow to settle things.

The weekend special $1,500 NLHE event got a sizable field of 2,811 and at the end of play there were but 331 bagging up chips. The field size represents an increase on the corresponding event last year, but the WSOP as a whole is down 9% in terms of traffic. Cherish Andrews leads the field, having run her 4,500 starting stack up to an incredible 225,900, almost double that of her closest rival. Famous names still with chips include Joe Cada and John Juanda, and they’ll be back tomorrow at 1 pm to play down to the last few tables before crowning a winner on Monday.

The prestigious $10,000 HORSE kicked off today drawing 178 players and thanks to the generous structure 136 remain. Those emerging with big stacks include last year’s winner Fabrice Soulier who is the chip leader as well as Allen Bari, Michael Binger, David Bach and new bracelet winner Ylon Schwartz. Phil Ivey is also going pretty well. They get back to work at 2 pm tomorrow. Also tomorrow, we’ve got a $1,000 NLHE starting at 12 pm.

Author Profile: Rob O’Connor+

written by Rob \\ tags: Day 20, HORSE, Marcel Luske, Poker, Seniors Event, World Series of Poker, WSOP