WSOP $50,000 Players Championship Day 2: Prizepool and Controversy

Day 2 of the 2012 World Series of Poker $50,000 Poker Players Championship eight-game mix event is in the books and the official numbers for the event are in. A total of 108 players posted the sizable buy-in, building a $5,184,000 prize pool. Sixteen will make the money, with $91,549 for a min-cash and $1,451,527 for the eventual champion.

While day 1 saw only a single elimination, action really picked on day 2 with 45 players hitting the rail including Daniel Negreanu, John Juanda, Gus Hansen, Jonathan Duhamel, Justin Bonomo, Scott Seiver, David “Bakes” Baker, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and many other notable pros.

While many saw their way out the door, a number of big names thrived on day 2 including chip leader Andy Bloch, John Monnette, 2010 champion of this event Michael Mizrachi, Joe Cassidy, Robert Mizrachi and Abe Mosseri, who won a huge and controversial side-pot in a hand involving Shaun Deeb and Nikolai Yakovenko in pot-limit Omaha.

With five limpers, Nikolai Yakovenko raised to 12,400 and was called by every player around to Shaun Deeb, who potted, and was all-in for 68,800. It folded back to Yakovenko, who re-potted and slid two huge stacks into the pot. It folded around to Mosseri, who went deep into the tank.

Mosseri thought for a number of minutes, all the while trading verbal needles with Yakovenko, with whom he had a number of tense interactions with throughout the day, according to tablemate Ali Eslami. The tension continued to mount as more and more players caught wind of the massive pot brewing and came over to catch a peek.

Seemingly to the spectators Mosseri announced his hand as “aces and one suit.” After about ten minutes, Yakovenko called the clock on Mosseri, which prompted him to announce call, at which point he rolled over his hand and the other two players followed suit.

Mosseri held the AAJ5, Yakovenko the KK33 and Deeb the JJ107. The dealer then ran out a board of QJ2108, giving Deeb the main pot with a flush and Mosseri the sizable, but as yet unmeasured side pot. Or so it would seem.

At this point, Yakovenko realized that Mosseri only said call, and not all-in, and wanted to know what should happen since they both had more chips than the re-pot that Yakovenko announced preflop.

The first WSOP floor-man on the scene ruled that Yakovenko’s reraise was to 246,000. With Mosseri’s stack covering that by roughly 150,000, the first floor-man ruled that the turn and river would have to be shuffled in and re-dealt as the post-flop action was incomplete.

Deeb, who was clearly all-in and had thought he had tripled up, now was facing the possibility of losing the pot if Mosseri were able to re-draw out on his flopped set. Another floor-man was called to the table and reversed the ruling, as it was deemed that all-in was the “accepted action” by all parties preflop, and Yakovenko made to pay out the entirety of Mosseri’s stack, leaving him crippled. He was eliminated a few moments later, while Mosseri stacked the sizable side pot and Deeb more than tripled up.

Card Player TV spoke with Deeb after play ended to get his take on the hand:

Here is a look at the top ten chip counts heading into day 3: