Championship: Joseph Cheong Leads Final 81 Players

$3,500 WPT Showdown Championship
$3,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure | Payouts
End of Level 20: 5,000/10,000 with 1,000 ante
Players Remaining: 81 of 1,309

Joseph Cheong

After another 10 levels of play, Day 2 of 2018 Seminole Hard Rock Showdown main event played into the money and finished with just 81 players remaining.

Joseph Cheong bagged the heaviest bag of all the survivors with 1,864,000 in chips. He holds a sizable chip lead over the rest of the field with Brian Hastings being his closest competitor with 1,474,000.

Scott Margereson (1,215,000), Emrah Cakmak (1,182,000) and Brian England (1,181,000) round out the top five chip counts. Jeff Fielder and Scott Stewart are the only two other players with seven-figure chip counts with 1,158,000 and 1,011,000, respectively.

Faraz Jaka, Jake Bazeley, Aaron Mermelstein, Victor Ramdin, Natasha Mercier, Damjan Radanov, Matt Stout, Justin Liberto and Dylan Wilkerson are just a handful of notables that made it through the star-studded field that’s left.

The day started with 480 players coming back and hoping to make the money. The money bubble burst at the end of level 17, when Louis Leveque was eliminated by AJ Gambino. The top 164 players were all in the money and guaranteed a cash of at least $5,860.

TK Miles, Dean Baranowski, Jessica Dawley, Darren Rabinowitz, Art Papazyan, Blake Bohn, Ryan Olisar, Zachary Smiley, Joe Elpayaa, Wendy Freedman, Jason Mercier, Loni Harwood and Michael Wang were a few of the notables eliminated today, but survived long enough to finish in the money.

Cards get back in the air on Monday at noon for Day 3 action. The blinds will be 6,000/12,000 with a 2,000 ante and they will play five, 90-minute levels before bagging up chips for the day. Everybody remaining is guaranteed a cash of at least $7,949.

Complete chip counts will be posted shortly.