86 warriors left heading into day 3
Thursday, October 8, 2009 - Aruba Jonny
86 players are left standing as we head into Day 3 of the Aruba Poker Classic Main Event. I touched base with Jon Favaloro just before play resumed on Wednesday to talk about his massive first place chip lead.
This is his third year at the Aruba Poker Classic. After playing in ’06 and ’07, and then sitting out for a year, it’s fairly obvious that Favaloro used that one-year hiatus to hone his game like a champion. After Day 1A and 1B wrapped up, Favaloro topped the chip count list with an impressive 88,575 in chips. Jon credits his success so far in the Main Event not to any one monster hand that catapulted him to chip lead status, but rather to a slow and steady game that allowed him to chip up slowly.
“I had no big confrontations in Day 1,” notes Favaloro. “I just slowly picked up chips here and there and eventually took the lead.”
It’s that same slow and steady strategy that earned him a spot in the Main Event to begin with. Favaloro made his way to Aruba through UltimateBet’s 50-seat Guaranteed Super Satellite where he managed to squeeze his way into the top 50 and earn an $8,500 prize package.
Favaloro plays mostly online, preferring it to land-based poker tourneys.
Favaloro heads into Day 3 in 2nd place with 255,300 in chips, just behind chip leader Robert Mizrachi who’s sitting with 353,200.