There was no shortage of eyes surrounding the best players in the world on Day 1, and that should only amplify on Day 2 when the scene is moved to the bright lights of the main stage at the Horseshoe Las Vegas. Welcome back for Day 2 of Event #40: $250,000 Super High Roller, the largest buy-in event of the 2023 World Series of Poker.
It was another larger-than-expected field for this buy-in level that saw a total of 56 entries recorded on Day 1, generating a prize pool of $13,944,000, with time still to grow. After eight levels were completed on the opening day, only 37 players managed to advance to Day 2 thus far. It was a surprise chip leader when the dust settled as Dustin Bailey accumulated a stack of 4,850,000 chips while battling with the best players in the world.
Bailey was seated next to Phil Ivey throughout the entire day which also drew a lot of eyes to the table. Ivey survived through the eight levels but will be returning to a sub-average stack of 1,235,000. The businessman was also engaged with the other big stack in the tournament, Chance Kornuth, as the two traded some friendly banter throughout. Kornuth held the chip lead throughout much of the day, but was dethroned late and will return with a stack of 4,340,000.
The structure of the event allows for plenty of opportunities for the short stacks to make their way back into contention. A starting stack is still worth 50 big blinds to start Day 2 and the average stack is over 70 big blinds. Late registration will remain open until the start of Day 2 which begins at 1 p.m. PST. The blinds will be resuming on level nine at 15,000/30,000 and a 30,000 big blind ante.
The schedule indicates that a total of 10 levels will be played today with a 15-minute break after every two levels and a 60-minute dinner break after level 14. However, that is always TBD based on the pace of play of the tournament.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be here to bring you all of those updates and more en route to the money bubble being burst later today.