In tournament poker, there are chip leaders and then there are chip leaders. At the World Poker Tour (WPT) bestbet Open Main Event, David Diaz was the italicized latter on Sunday. Upon the close of Day 2, he held a monstrous lead on his 24 opponents, holding 1.705 million chips at night’s end.
Let’s use a few numbers to put Diaz’s chip stack in perspective. He has 900,000 more chips than Michael Linster, the next closest player. He has a million more than the third place competitor, Benjamin Zamani. His 1.705 million chips are more than both Linster and Zamani combined. And the incredible stat of the day: David Diaz is the only player of the remaining 25 with a chip stack greater than the average of 1.316 million. The only one.
David Diaz is not a very well-known name in the poker world and he does not have scads of tournament wins. Most of his live tourney cashes are in small, low buy-in tournaments. He does have one fantastic win, though: the 2011 World Series of Poker (WSOP) $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Triple Chance event, good for $352,808. He also made the final table at the 2012 WPT Borgata Poker Open Championship Event, placing sixth. All told, Diaz has won over $1.2 million in his live tournament career.
Diaz wasn’t dominant from the start. During the early evening, he was almost done, needing a double-up through Shannon Shorr just to increase his stack to 49,000 chips. He started raking it in after that, though, just about quadrupling his stack within a couple hours. As 9:00pm approached, he made his most important move of the day. Shorr raised for 10,500 pre-flop and both Diaz and Robert Sutliff called. Sean Winters, though re-raised to 30,000. Diaz and Sutliff called after Shorr folded. Upon the flop of K♠-8♦-6♠, Winters bet 35,000, Diaz called, and Sutliff folded. On the T♥ turn, Winters went all-in and Diaz called all-in for 207,000. Diaz turned over 9♣-7♣, giving him a turned straight, while Winters showed Q♣-J♠, good for an open-ended straight draw. The river produced the T♦, providing Diaz with a gigantic double-up and sending his chip stack soaring to over 500,000.
Immediately thereafter, Diaz eliminated Shorr with Aces against Jacks, taking his stack up to 860,000.
While David Diaz was the big story of Day 2, Sunday was a also major pare-down day, as the field narrowed from 129 players all the way down to just 25. Since the payouts started at 36th place, all players who made it through Sunday made the money.
Day 3 picks up at noon on Monday and will continue until the final table of six is determined.
2013 World Poker Tour bestbet Open – Day 2 Chip Leaders
1. David Diaz – 1,705,000
2. Michael Linster – 816,000
3. Benjamin Zamani – 725,000
4. David Sands – 692,000
5. Tim Reilly – 591,000
6. John Dollinger – 537,000
7. David Bell – 524,000
8. Raj Vohra – 501,000
9. Chad Deberry – 491,000
10. Aaron Lucas – 477,000
