Another day inside the halls of the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino and the 2011 World Series of Poker is over with the chips being bagged in Event #31: $3,000 Pot-Limit Omaha.
685 players started the day in an event that was new to the World Series, and with no previous champion to chase down, plenty of players were expecting that they could be the one to hoist the gold bracelet aloft in just a few days time.
Bracelet winners Vanessa Selbst, Bertrand Grospellier, Mike Matusow, Jason Mercier, Erik Seidel, Phil Hellmuth, Scott Clements, Men Nguyen, David Chiu and Carlos Mortensen all fell throughout the day as notable players and fellow Canadians Jonathan Duhamel and Daniel Negreanu busted in the final level alongside Erica Schoenberg as 138 players remained.
With a $420,802 first prize on the line, it is Ben Lamb sitting atop with an amassed 169,800-chip stack mainly courtesy of a quads-over-quads situation. Paul Volpe (125,200), Arthur Morris (124,300) and Brian Roberts (117,000) round out the leaderboard. Plenty of highly talented players still remain with bracelet winners Jeffrey Lisandro, Tex Barch, Robert Williamson, Eli Elezra, Erick Lindgren and John Juanda all still in contention alongside plenty of others.
The PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be back on the felt tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. PDT to provide the continued coverage of Day 2 of Event #31: $3,000 Pot-Limit Omaha, so make sure to stay tuned to 7h1.shop as we aim to play down till just a final table remains.
Leif Force went all in for his last 9,000 holding the but found himself behind to his opponent's . Whether mystical powers were involved or not, the board ran out giving Force a full house and a double up to 18,000.
With the board reading , Ben Lamb checked the action to Matt O'Donnell who bet 10,000. Lamb then raised to 22,000 and O'Donnell called. The river brought the and Lamb bet out 38,000. O'Donnell called but probably regretted that decision as soon as he saw Lamb flip over his for quad queens.