Ukrainian poker pro Igor Yaroshevsky finished Day 1A of the PokerStars Championship Panama main event with a massive chip lead.
After the end of Day 2 today, he now enjoys an even bigger chip lead.
With just shy of 750,000 chips in the bag Yaroshevskyy is 180,000 chips ahead of Denis Timofeev in second place and well on the way to another deep run.
Another player on his way to a deep run? Former UFC champion Tito Ortiz, who also managed to parlay a big stack from Day 1A into a good spot to start Day 3 tomorrow.
Ortiz is in the Top 10 overnight and is now looking at by far his biggest achievement in poker with just nine players left to bust before the money.
Tito cruising.
On the other end of the chip counts is Belgian ace Davidi Kitai, who somehow managed to finish last in the counts again as he ended the first day as the shortest stack as well.
Then again, he is extremely difficult to bust.
Biggest $5k Event in LatAm
The PokerStars Championship Panama main event is now officially the biggest $5k event held in Latin America.
With 366 total entries the prize pool hit $1,775,100 and just shy of $300k will go to the winner. Seventy-eight players remain after the end of Day 2 and 71 will make the money.
Just four players took the opportunity to late register at the start of Day 2 today but these were quite some heavyweight additions to the field.
The players were Erik Seidel, Bryn Kenney, Martin Jacobson and Ambrose Ng. Between them they have career earnings of over $60 million.
It’s safe to say Jacobson had the worst day of the three. He lasted just 70 minutes before he busted, meaning that he paid $75 for every minute he sat at the table.
It didn’t go well for the other three late registrations either, though. Seidel busted only minutes after Jacobson and Kenney and Ng followed in the third level of the day.
Canadians Bear Down on Panama
It doesn’t happen very often so it should be noted here that the largest group of players in the PSC main event are the Canadians.
Perez Borrego on her way to big score.
15% of the field is from the Great White North with Americans in second place at 12%. Spain and Germany share third place with 6% of the field each.
15 of the remaining 78 players are Canadian. Of the local heroes, just two are left in the field and one of them is also the last woman standing.
Jessica Perez Borrego, whom we introduced you to yesterday, advanced to Day 3 as one of the Top 10 chip stacks.
Because the player field is smaller than in most of the PokerStars events Day 2 was shortened by one level today and Day 3 will do the same. This means that tomorrow we’ll start with the last 75-minute level and then move to the first 90-minute level.
Overall just four levels will be played to give all the tournament players a relatively short day. That will probably mean a boost for “Jackie’s Room," which is the cash game area here in the Sortis Hotel.
If you're already there, watch out for Kristen Bicknell as she’s out of the tournament and might well spend her evenings there.
PokerStars Championship Panama Main Event Top 10
| Igor Yaroshevskyy | Ukraine | 745,500 |
| Denis Timofeev | Russia | 569,000 |
| Caufman Talley | USA | 546,000 |
| Tito Ortiz | USA | 270,500 |
| Vincent Allevato | Canada | 256,500 |
| Pablo Gordillo | Spain | 254,500 |
| Pedro Romanzo Pollino | Venezuela | 244,000 |
| Eduards Kudrjavcevs | Latvia | 237,000 |
| Jessica Perez Borrego | Panama | 235,500 |
| Kenneth Smaron | USA | 234,500 |
Follow all of the action on Day 3 tomorrow from the Sortis Hotel and Casino right here on the live stream starting at 1 pm ET.
