WSOP 2018: Justin Bonomo Takes Big Chip Lead in The Big One for One Drop With 6 Players Remaining

As the penultimate day of Event #78: The Big One for One Drop – $1,000,000 No-Limit Hold’em concludes, only one final day of play remains for the 2018 World Series of Poker (WSOP) to complete its 78-event long tournament series.

Topping the leaderboard with a massive chip lead of 48,950,000 is two-time bracelet winner Justin Bonomo (cover image). A look at Bonomo’s statistics for 2018 shows that the poker star has had a fabulous run thus far, winning a total of nine events across the globe starting with the $25,500 No Limit Hold’em – High Roller #20 at the 2018 Lucky Hearts Poker Open in January for $556,873. He scored his career-best win in the $300,000 No Limit Hold’em at 2018 Super High Roller Bowl for $5,000,000 in May and topped it off with his second bracelet win at the ongoing WSOP in $10,000 No Limit Hold’em – Heads Up Championship (Event #16) for $185,965. His current total live earnings have jumped up to touch a staggering $32,979,591.

Bonomo may well be within striking distance of his third WSOP bracelet and his second bracelet win this year, but the road to victory will not be easy as six survivors still remain in the hunt for the elusive top prize of $10,000,000 and the WSOP gold bracelet at this prestigious event!

Day 2 Recap

With three late entries on Day 2, namely Brian Rast, Byron Kaverman and Rainer Kempe, the prize pool of The Big One for One Drop increased to $24,840,000 and the player pool extended to 27 runners. With only the top five places assured payouts, Day 2 witnessed 16 eliminations with play halted on the money bubble.

The first elimination of the day was Adrian Mateos whose were defeated by Fedor Holz’ pocket sevens. Rainer Kempe was the next to go when his pocket queens lost out to David Einhorn’s pocket rockets as the latter was able to clip a set of aces on the board to better his hand and end Kempe’s very short stay in the event. Thereafter, Holz eliminated Talal Shakerchi while Stephen Chidwick was busted by Matthew Siegal.

After the first break, the remaining 18 players came back to slog it out. The sequence of eliminations saw Mikita Badziakouski (18^th), Brian Rast (17^th), Daniel Negreanu (16^th), Jason Koon (15^th) and Steffen Sontheimer (14^th) hitting the rails in quick succession.

Badziakouski’s were no match for Rick Salomon’s , while Rast’s were overpowered by Nick Petrangelo’s pocket queens.

After losing several hands, Daniel Negreanu shoved all-in from the small blind with and was called by Sontheimer in the big blind with . With the community missing both players, Sontheimer’s ace kicker resulted in Negreanu’s elimination.

Koon went head-to-head against Bonomo holding pocket tens while the latter held pocket queens. Bonomo picked up trip queens when the board fanned out , and railed Koon. Sontheimer did not last much longer either and busted next when his failed to hold up against Dan Smith’s .

Matthew Siegal (13^th), Dominik Nitsche (12^th), Christoph Vogelsang (11^th) and Cary Katz (10^th) were all eliminated in short intervals from each other, leading to the redrawing for the unofficial final table.

Erik Seidel (9^th) bubbled the official final table when Einhorn opened from the button and the short-stacked Seidel called from big blind. The flop fell and Seidel checked while Einhorn raised. Seidel check-raised and Einhorn 3-bet prompting Seidel to move all-in. Seidel tabled against Einhorn’s . While Seidel had flopped a queen-high straight, Einhorn had outs to a diamond flush draw. The on the turn was a miss but on the river gave Einhorn the flush eliminating Seidel.

Final Table Recap

The eight-handed final table commenced with Bonomo (24,700,000) in the lead, along with Kaverman (23,500,000), Einhorn (20,600,000), Salomon (20,600,000), Petrangelo (15,000,000), Holz (13,400,000), Smith (9,600,000) and Phil Ivey (7,600,000).

While Phil Ivey’s return to the WSOP after a yearlong hiatus saw him rake up 4 cashes, increasing his tally to 55, however, the 10-time bracelet winner was not able to make the cut for Day 3, as he was the first one to be eliminated from the final table in eighth place. On the 13^th hand on the final table, Bonomo opened from the hijack. Phil Ivey went all-in from the button and Boomo called tabling against Ivey’s . The flop and turn did not benefit either player, but the river brought Bonomo three-of-a-kind kings and Ivey was eliminated.

The final elimination of Day 2 came through Nick Petrangelo in seventh place. 40 hands later, Petrangelo moved all-in from middle position and Bonomo countered by moving all-in from the small blind. Petrangelo turned over and Bonomo revealed pocket nines. Bonomo flopped a set of nines with . With the turn and river not going in Petrangelo’s favour, he had to make his way back to the rail.

With play halted on the money bubble, the sixth-place elimination will get the five finalists a minimum payout of $2,000,000. Bonomo (48,950,000) has a big lead over the field with Holz (22,125,000) and Smith (21,450,000) a distant second and third in chips.

Six-Handed Chip Counts

1. Justin Bonomo – 48,950,000

2. Fedor Holz – 22,125,000

3. Dan Smith – 21,450,000

4. Rick Salomon – 19,650,000

5. David Einhorn – 12,300,000

6. Byron Kaverman – 10,525,000

Content and image courtesy: WSOP.com.

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