January 30 2012, Cory Dowd

It was an action-packed Day 2 of the World Series of Poker Circuit $1,600 Main Event at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The day began with 133 players competing for a prize pool of $963,210, and more than half got paid when the money bubble burst at 72 on Sunday. The field was then trimmed down to 15 players after ten levels of play, with chip leader Nicholas Wilbur pacing the field with 1,541,000 chips.

Wilbur earned most of those chips when he got his all in preflop against the of Brandon Riha. In a pot worth more than 1.4 million chips, Wilbur managed to catch up on the river as the board ran out . After that, Wilbur used his big stack to chip up for the better part of a level and a half.

Wilbur’s run is especially impressive when you consider who is chasing him. Jeff Madsen, Dutch Boyd, Sean Getzwiller and Kevin Calenzo are still in contention with very healthy stacks. Madsen was one of the chip leaders throughout Day 2. However, he took a tough hit late when his was unable to catch up to the of Rellie Sigua. Madsen will return with 917,000 chips on Monday.

Boyd was also consistently chipping up throughout the day and then hit a one-outer on the river against Sam McGrath. Boyd’s luck didn’t last, though, as he was unable to fade the flush draw of Joe Kuether on the very last hand of play to finish with 726,000. Kuether, the Day 1a chip leader, is just shy of the chip lead entering the final day, holding 1,519,000.

Getzwiller bagged up 989,000 in large part due to his pocket jacks holding against the of Brandon Riha and the of short stack Mark Kroon late in the night. Calenzo, meanwhile, got most of his 695,000 chips toward the end of the day when he was dealt pocket aces against the pocket queens of Joshua Pollock.

Scott Clements, William Reynolds, Dan O’Brien and James Carroll were some of the unfortunate players who fell short of the money on Sunday. Andreas Hoivold, Kathy Liebert and Gavin Griffin all made the money, but all were eliminated before play ended.

Monday will bring the final day of the WSOPC Main Event at Caesars Palace. The final 15 will play down to a champion, and our Live Reporting Team will be providing updates all day long. Be sure to check in to find out who wins the WSOPC gold ring and the $197,451 top prize.

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January 29 2012, Kevin Taylor

Day 1b of the World Series of Poker Circuit Caesars Palace $1,600 Main Event saw 354 players take to the felt, creating a total field of 662 players between the two Day 1 flights. After 15 levels of play, 76 players bagged their chips to return for Day 2 on Sunday, when they will combine with the 58 survivors from Day 1a to play through the money bubble and, hopefully, to a final table.

Jeff Fielder is the overall leader heading into Day 2 after building a stack of 437,500 chips on Saturday. Fielder ascended to the top of the leaderboard when he won a massive pot late in the day against Mark “P0ker H0″ Kroon, who at the time was second in chips. With the blinds at 1,200/2,400 and a 400 ante, Kroon opened the pot with a raise to 6,100 and was called by Fielder and both of the players in the blinds. The flop was and Kroon continued his aggression with a bet of 11,700. Fielder, the only player in the room able to knock Kroon out, made the call, and the two were heads up to the turn. Kroon fired 22,700 and Fielder called.

The river was the . Kroon stacked out some chips, then put them back in his stack and finally sat back in his chair and thought for a bit. He eventually checked, and Fielder placed 30,000 in chips just over the betting line. Kroon then check-raised to 75,700, and Fielder began muttering to himself that he should have just checked behind. After some more thought, Fielder decided he had to make the call.

“Nice call,” Kroon praised. Fielder tabled for trip fours to scoop the nearly 250,000 chip pot. Kroon was left with around 185,000, and Fielder was the overwhelming chip leader with 440,000.

The Main Event was a re-entry tournament, meaning that anyone who busted out in Day 1a could re-enter Saturday if they chose pony up another $1,600 for the buy-in. Several players elected to fire another bullet, including Giorgio Medici, Eric Baldwin, Steve Gross, David Singontiko and David Williams. Unfortunately for all of them they will not be coming back for Day 2.

Some of the notables that registered only on Day 1b and failed to advance to Day 2 were Jamie Gold, Steve Billirakis, Frank Kassela, Eli Elezra, Gavin Smith and Bryan Devonshire.

There were a few big names that did move on to Day 2. Jeff Madsen made it through with plenty of chips (181,500), as did Kathy Liebert, Scott Clements, Dutch Boyd and Vanessa Peng. They will be joined Sunday by Day 1a survivors William Reynolds, Sean Getzwiller, Gavin Griffin, Dan O’Brien and James Carroll, amongst others. Fielder will be the biggest stack in the room, while the chip leader from Friday, Joe Kuether, will be next in line.

The remaining 134 players will return Sunday at 4 p.m. local time, and they will play down to either a final table or through 12 hours of play – whichever comes first. Be sure to check back in to the PokerNews Live Reporting page as we will have all the flops, turns, and rivers from here at Caesars Palace.

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