PCA: Praz Bansi Runs Away with the Chip Lead

Day Two of the PCA was a day for moving and shaking. Of the 1,529 players who took part in this year's event, only 884 returned for the second day of tournament play. The dust has yet to settle on the day, but it appears as though less than 300 remain in the field.

The majority of those players will be walking away with their own small piece of the more than $15 million prize pool. The top 224 players will make the money, but some changes in the payouts mean that the top prize is significantly less than last year's $3 million payout to 2009 Champion Poorya Nazari. This year's first place winner will still receive a handsome payday of $2.2 million and the top four finishers will all be earning at least $1 million.

Currently, the player in the best position to take home a million dollar payday is Praz Bansi, who seized the chip lead late in the day and ended with more than 950,000 chips to his name. Much like Wayne Bentley on Day 1A, Bansi took hold of the chip lead and put in a ton of distance between himself and the rest of the pack.

Bansi netted the bulk of his chips in a hand against Team PokerStars JC Alvarado, who flopped top set on a Q J 6 board. The money went all-in on after the 4 hit on the turn and Bansi revealed his 7 T for a flush. The board failed to pair on the river and Alvarado hit the rail while Bansi scooped the 700,000 chip pot.

Alvarado took the beat in stride though, simply telling his opponent, "You owe me nine beers." Bansi graciously agreed before returning to his stack, which he would build up even more before the day drew to close.

Another player towards the top of the chip counts is Matt Graham UB Poker Pro was atop the chip counts at the end of Day 1 and bagged up over 400,000 chips at the conclusion of Day 2. Graham filled BLUFF in on the progress today after bagging and tagging his chips: "It went really smoothly. I'm not sure I hit one major roadblock. I really only won one really big pot, but everything else went really smoothly."

Graham kept a level head about having a big stack early in the tournament though. "It's better than not being one of the chip leaders, but it definitely doesn't mean you're going to win."

Other big stacks coming back tomorrow include Bentley, Nasr El Nasr and Eric Froehlich. They, along with the rest of the Day 3 field, will return at 12PM tomorrow to play through the money bubble and get that much closer to a $2.2 million payday. Meanwhile, Day 1 big stacks like Annette Obrestad, Kevin "BeL0WaB0Ve" Saul as well as Chad Brown, Montel Williams, Marcel Luske and Isaac Baron all hit the rail today and have the rest of the week to take in the side events or spend some time at the pool.