We know these three things about Faraz Jaka. First, he could survive in the wild with a can of tuna and easy access to an able bartender. Second, his name is exceptionally fun to sing to the tune of Frère Jacques. Third, his performance on Day 2 of the PCA earned him the chip lead and the jaw-dropping respect of everyone within eyeshot. At the start of the day, Jaka had 129,500 chips. By the end of the night, he was sitting on 902,500, the runaway chip leader and Day 2 hero.
Oh, also, his fashion sense is still just as good as it always has been.
Jaka is no stranger to anyone here. The one-time World Poker Tour Player of the Year has a multi-million-dollar live winnings record, a winning history at the PCA, and an ability to confound the strongest of opponents with unconventional play. Known widely (and perhaps now somewhat unfortunately) as “The Toilet,” Jaka is flush with chips headed to Day 3.
When Jaka and the rest of the 544-strong Day 2 field started this morning, they were promised six 75-minute levels. They got just that, and by 9pm tonight were left looking at a field that had been reduced to fewer than 190 players. Though Jaka was responsible for a lot of that, he couldn’t claim all the chips.
The Day 2 bloodbath may have left room for everyone to go play some of the unique new side events or hang out with the winner of the Canada Cup, but the people in our sights are those who remain tonight to bag their chips.
Tonight, those hopefuls include two former champions, 2011 winner Galen Hall and 2010 champ Harrison Gimbel.
Also still in the running with big stacks are a lot of Team PokerStars Pros including Luca Pagano, Leo Fernandez, Barry Greenstein, Arnaud “The New ElkY” Matttern, Noah Boeken, and Liv Boeree. We’re also keeping a close eye on Team Online’s Shane Schleger and Randy Lew.
There are many more Team Pros and members of Team Online, but there are so many, it would be equivalent to recreating most of our PCA main event chip count section on this page. So go there and check them out. As soon as the official counts are in, we’ll put them up in full. You can also click the live reporting tab to look back on all the big hands of the day.
Once you’ve done all that, if your appetite still clamors for more PCA content, we have a veritable buffet of it. Many of those links in the above paragraphs will take you to features we wrote throughout the day. After you make it through all those, we have even more. Here’s a quick recap of some of the more interesting stories and behind-the-scenes tales from Day 2:
If that doesn’t do it all for you, we have moving pictures, attractive presenters, and all kinds of on-camera interviews over at the PCA section of PokerStars.tv.
If that doesn’t do you, stop reading about poker and get on a plane down here, because it’s the only way you’ll be able to experience any more of it than we’re offering here.
Those still alive will have one thing on their mind when they return at noon tomorrow. Within the first couple levels of the day, we expect everyone here to be in the money. The top 160 players here will earn at least $15,000. Do better than that and they’ll have a chance at the $2 million first prize. By Day 3’s end, we’ll be down to fewer than 80 players.
In case you decide not to fly down tomorrow to watch for yourself, we’ll be back here at noon on Tuesday for Day 3, live updates, chip counts, features, interviews, and anything else that comes across our table.
Join us then, won’t you?
Photos in this post and related links all © Joe Giron/Joe Giron Photography and Neil Stoddart
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