Ivens Leads Final 18 After Day 3 of $10,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship
Low Card: 5,000
Completion: 15,000
Limits: 15,000-30,000
Day 2 of Event #74: $10,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship turned into a marathon as the 74 players who began the day turned into 98 with 24 late registrations. Then, an elongated 90-minute bubble turned the day into one that would go nearly 14 hours and end near 2 a.m. with only 18 players left with chips.
Todd Ivens was a max-late-regger who ended as the chip leader with 1,190,000 after a strong final few levels to wrestle the chip lead away from Andrey Zhigalov by the end of the night. Zhigalov finished as the second-largest stack with 983,000.
Zhigalov had been the leader for much of the day as he had more than double the second largest stack at one point in the first few hours, drawing several incredulous looks from adjacent tables. He maintained that big chip stack all day long until near the end.
Bracelet winners Todd Brunson (859,000) and Brad Ruben (738,000) had strong finishes to the day to end up in the top five stacks and set themselves up in nice position for Day 3.
Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chips | Big Bets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Todd Ivens | United States | 1,190,000 | 30 |
| 2 | Andrey Zhigalov | Russia | 983,000 | 25 |
| 3 | Jared Talarico | United States | 963,000 | 24 |
| 4 | Todd Brunson | United States | 859,000 | 21 |
| 5 | Brad Ruben | United States | 738,000 | 18 |
| 6 | Jake Schwartz | United States | 735,000 | 18 |
| 7 | Arash Ghaneian | United States | 704,000 | 18 |
| 8 | Thomas Taylor | Canada | 688,000 | 17 |
| 9 | Richard Sklar | United States | 613,000 | 15 |
| 10 | Eric Wasserson | United States | 535,000 | 13 |
Also alive among the final 18 is none other than Norman Chad, who is making the most of one of his favorite variants of poker with a deep run to Day 3 where he will take a middle-of-the-pack stack of 288,000. Chad's longtime poker announcing booth partner, Lon McEachern, was on hand for much of the day to watch his friend make it to Day 3.
The day began with Allen Kessler as the third largest stack, but he would not have the best day and his stack was depleted an hour before dinner break.
Start of Day 2 chip leader Ali Eslami had a similarly bleak day as his chips were exhausted well before the money.
Several other notables exited as the money approached including Anthony Zinno, Brandon Shack-Harris and Chad Eveslage.
The money bubble was the main drama of the day, as there were six all-ins who survived over the course of 90 minutes and close to 40 hands. Finally, Suketu Patel became the unfortunate one to bite the dust and bring the rest of the field into the money.
With 18 players remaining, Day 3 promises to be a marathon as well, with the day starting at 1 p.m. local time at Level 18 with limits of 20,000-40,000 and a 5,000 ante and bring-in.
PokerNews will bring you all the action until a new stud hi-lo champion emerges, so stay tuned!