Day 1 of the $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. championship at the L.A. Poker Classic was a long and grueling affair. The 20,000 starting stacks and 75-minute levels made it difficult for the world’s best players to bust, leaving 70 of the original 96 standing by the end of the day.
Day 2 was completely different from start to finish. The mounting blinds and antes kicked up a notch, and the short-stacks found themselves looking for a spot to get their chips in. Some simply went card-dead and were forced to get their money in behind. Others ended their tournaments by being on the wrong end of a bad beat or cooler.
With only the final table of eight getting paid, many players weren’t so concerned with the long haul and opted to accumulate chips as quickly as possible. Yet the most patient players made the deepest runs, often withstanding long dry spells and chip erosion before mounting comebacks.
Coming into the day with a massive chip lead, David "Chino" Rheem almost saw himself out within the first three hours of play. Rheem tried to use those towers of chips to push his opponents around, but instead saw his stack dip dangerously low to the felt. After the dinner break, however, Rheem rebounded to make a run at the final table. Rheem ended the day with 159,500, enough to put him in third place.
Matt "mattg1983" Graham was down to his last 2,200 at one point in the tournament. He survived several all-ins for quite some time, prompting Layne Flack to declare him as unbustable. Flack himself went out in the middle of the pack, but Graham went on to tear through the final levels and finished the day with 237,500, good for second place.
Jeff Madsen was at some of the toughest tables of the day, yet had no problem accumulating chips. At one point, he even jokingly apologized to the table for running so hot. Madsen was the first player to cross the 200,000 in chips mark and later became the only player to end the day with over 300,000. In fact, heading into the final day of play, Madsen is approaching another milestone with 360,500 in chips.
Here are the top five players and their chip counts:
- Jeff Madsen — 360,500
- Matt Graham — 237,500
- Chino Rheem — 159,500
- Amnon Filippi — 139,000
- Gavin Griffin — 130,000
Join us tommorow at 12:30 p.m. PT as we bring you the conclusion to this H.O.R.S.E. championship and begin our coverage of the $10,000 no-limit hold’em heads-up event.
