WSOP: Event #28, $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha, Down to 12 Players
June 17th, 2010
An international group is chasing the latest PLO bracelet today.
Just 12 players of the original 596 players return on Day 3 of Event #28, the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha – and the group that remains looks very different than the group you might have picked if you’d drafted in a pool when this tournament hit the money. T.J. Cloutier, Michael Binger, Christian Harder, Sandra Naujoks, Chau Giang, and 2010 WSOP bracelet winners Richard Ashby and Josh Tieman all cashed but fell short of advancing to the final day of play.
In their place is a tough, international group of players headed up by chip leader Miguel Proulx of Canada, who enters play with 877,000 chips. Frenchman Patrick Hanoteau is close behind with 824,000 but the rest of the field is trailing him by 350,000 or more. Bulgaria’s Dilyan Kovachev, England’s Michael Greco, Germany’s Karl Gal, and Americans Joe Serock and Tommy Le (brother of poker pro Nam Le) will all be looking for a chance to break one of those big stacks down and get some ammunition for the run to the bracelet. They’ll get started again and begin playing down to a winner at 2:30 p.m. PT.
Cake Poker player Justin Gardenhire, who won a $12,500 Cake Poker WSOP prize package back in May, came close to his first Day 3 berth of the summer in this event. Pot-Limit Omaha can be a cruel game, and Justin’s exit was proof; within three hands he went from having a 260,000-chip stack to being all-in with a big draw against an opponent who had more than a few of his outs. A miss on the river meant he had to leave the tournament in 21st place.
Because Cake Poker qualifiers allow players to “play, stay and even wear what they want,” Justin elected to play a number of preliminary bracelet events instead of putting all his eggs in one basket with the Main Event. That’s been a good decision so far, as his run in this event netted him his third cash of the WSOP. He’ll be looking to make another run starting today in Event #33, $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em/Omaha, and we’ll keep up with his progress when that tournament begins at 5:00 p.m. PT. If you’d like the chance to join Justin and other Cake Poker qualifiers at the WSOP, check out the full information right here.
