December 12 2011, Rich Ryan

Day 2 of the 2011 World Series of Poker Circuit Main Event at Harrah’s Atlantic City is in the books. The day began with 215 players, but that number skyrocketed when over 100 players lined up to be alternates. When the dust finally settled, the tournament fielded 618 entrants, generating a prize pool of $899,190. Make the final table, and you’re guaranteed $17,516. Win, and you take home $188,830 and the gold ring.

No player had a more turbulent day than our chip leader; Tuan Phan. Phan was unafraid to get all of his chips in the middle, and was fortunate enough to win a 200,000-chip pot against Chris Reslock when he flopped a set against Reslock’s flopped flush. The board paired on the river, eliminating Reslock from the tournament and propelling Phan to the top of the leaderboard. Phan finished with an impressive 1.060 million chips – we’ll see if he can go wire-to-wire on Monday.

Hung Truong entered the day as the leader with 211,200 chips, and survived with 692,000 chips in his stack. He could’ve finished stronger, his peak was well over 700,000, but he’s certainly happy with advancing to Day 3. Jimmy Born was second in chips entering the day, and he too will return on Day 3 to chase the gold. Like Truong, Born was at one time flirting with seven figures, but only managed to bag 510,000 chips.

Peter Ippolito cashed, but failed to reach a second final table at this stop. He won Event #1 for $37,926, and added $4,388 to that today with his 33rd place finish. Other notables who cashed include Sirous Jamshidi (57th, $2,940), Mark Rose (54th, $3,192), Ashira Lavine ($3,192), Jeffrey Papola (38th, $3,507), and Steven Tabb (26th, $5,755).

Quite a few well known players busted short of the money, including Mark “Pegasus Smith, Mike “Little Man” Sica, Chris Tryba, Drazen Ilich, Carter Phillips, Josh Brikis and Matthew Chang.

The final 20 look like this:

Table 52

Table 62

Table 83

The tournament resumes Monday at 1200 EST (1700 GMT), where we will play down to a champion. Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews.com for exclusive coverage of the WSOPC!

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