Day 2 of the World Poker Tour World Championship at the Bellagio saw top players both come and go.  Unlike most other major WPT stops, where registration closes early on Day 1, for all of the first and much of the second day of play at this $25,000 buy-in event registration remained open- as is becoming the standard at most major Bellagio run events. This novel option, which was taken advantage of by a surprisingly large amount of players, is primarily possible thanks to huge 100,000 chip starting stacks and low starting blinds, that make beginning a day late suddenly not all that impractical. 

Some of the well known players who chose to skip the first day of play at the Bellagio included Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Brandon Cantu, John Hennigan, Steve Sung, David Williams, James Mackey, Howard Lederer, J.J Liu, Daniel Alaei, Hoyt Corkins, Phil Hellmuth and Andy Bloch, who was one of the last ones to enter during the eighth level of play and surprisingly also one of the quickest eliminated- sent home during level nine.

Once all of the Day 2 entrants were counted and added to yesterday’s totals, organizers of this year's WPT World Championship were able to announce a total field size of 195 players; over 140 less players than last year’s Championship but still enough to create a total prize pool of $4,728,750 and a top prize worth more than $1.5 million.

By the end of Day 2 play, nearly half of those 195 pros had been sent packing including such fan favorites as PokerRoad’s Gavin Smith, Isaac Haxton, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Daniel Negreanu, Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Phil Ivey.

The top 18 finishers of the 98 remaining players will be able to claim a chunk of that formidable prize pool, and even with the elimination of so many big names yesterday, there are still quite a few fun pros worth railing as things move forward. 

Some of the players to watch with above average stacks heading into today’s Day 3 action include Justin Bonomo, David Williams, Phil Hellmuth, Dwyte Pilgrim, Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy, Carlos Mortensen, Shawn Buchanan and Faraz Jaka, who currently leads them all with close to 600,000 in tournament chips and is looking very likely now to lock up the prestigious WPT Player of the Year title, in just a matter of days.

For more information on the World Poker Tour Season 8 World Championship, or to read the updates, either how they happened yesterday or how they will happen again today when Day 3 kicks off at noon PST, visit www.worldpokertour.com.