WPT Bellagio, Day 2: Patrik Antonius Holds the Lead

Thursday, December 15th, 2005

by BJ Nemeth
CardPlayer.com

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Patrik Antonius entered day two of Bellagio's Five Diamond World Poker Classic with a strong chip lead. But with all the possible table draws, he ended up with the worst situation -- Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi was sitting immediately to his left with the second biggest chip stack in the field. Having an extremely aggressive player like Mizrachi acting behind you severely limits the power of the big stack.

Mizrachi flexed his positional muscles early, reraising Antonius preflop to put him to the test. But as the day wore on, Antonius eventually got the best of it. The key hand of the day happened late in the second level, when Antonius bet $15,000 on the turn with the board showing Ks-6c-4d-5c. Mizrachi raised to $45,000, and Antonius called. The river card was the 8h, and Mizrachi called an $80,000 bet from Antonius with 8c-7c -- Mizrachi had turned an eight-high straight. But Antonius had 9h-7h -- he hit his three outer to make a nine-high straight on the river. That pot was worth over $250,000, and it pushed Antonius to the next level (over $400,000 in chips).

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