WPT Season 5 Championship Day 2

Filed in archive Tournament News on April 25, 2007

The World Poker Tour welcomed back 479 players in its $25,000 WPT Championship tourney today at the Belliago Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

Day two brings another work day for the many pros and aspiring amateurs chasing the biggest poker prize awarded outside of the World Series of Poker.

$3.9 million going out to the winner, and making the next two places millionaires as well. Of course hacking 14 to 16 hour workdays despite the end prize being so tempting, will take all the skill and endurance that these players can dish out. Of course if you're accepting tequlia shooters from the diminutive chip leader Anna Wroblewski, it could make the day go a little faster...

... by letting her relieve you of your chips as she's been doing for the first two days ending with nearly 400,000 chips.

Here's the recap from Dr. Pauly at Pokernews.com:

Anna "The Poker Fairy" Wroblewski had a magical Day 1a and began Day 2 as the overall chipleader with 211,325. She got off to a hot start and kept adding chips all day long. She flopped a set with 8-8 and cracked pocket Aces as she past the 200K mark. She raced past the 300K mark and got as high as 460K before she slipped a little. She ended the day under 400K but is still at the front of the pack.

"I'm still decent in chips," she said. "I had a tougher table. I was trying too hard. I'm happy to play with the big names. It's the people I watch on TV."

Phil Hellmuth shrugged off a mediocre first day and went to work on Day 2. He was relatively quiet compared to Day 1 and focused on building up his stack. He caught some cards including flopping a set of Queens against David Rheem.

"I didn't run that well on Day 1 and lost a lot of POTS," mentioned Hellmuth. "Today was a smooth day and I never won any big pots. Today was about protecting chips. I was playing small pot poker. That's Phil Hellmuth poker."

Roland de Wolfe attained the majority of his chips in the biggest pot of the tournament against JC Alvarado. With 52 De Wolfe moved all in on a flop of KQ2 and was called by Alvarado who held bottom pair and a baby flush draw with KQ. De Wolfe's hand held up as he stacked up Alvarado's chips. That pot pushed him past the 500K milestone. He ended Day 2 as the chipleader.

De Wolfe would hold a small lead over Phil Hellmuth as Anna Wroblewski could not hold the lead. She still has plenty of chips as the players approached the mid-way point of the WPT Championships.

Can Anna Wroblewski keep up her remarkable run? Or will Phil Hellmuth implode and donk off his chips? Tune in to Poker News to find out by following along with our live updates. Don't forget to check out our extensive photo gallery, Feature Hands section, and amazing videos and interviews.