The thermometer outside Horseshoe Las Vegas read 102°F at three in the afternoon, but inside the Amazon Room, Naoya Kihara sat perfectly still in a light windbreaker. Not a bead of sweat. Not a flicker of emotion. Just the occasional, almost imperceptible adjustment of his chip towers as Day 2 of the WSOP $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw Championship wound toward its conclusion.
The Geography of Chips
Thirteen players remain. That’s all. From a starting field that drew the usual suspects and a few surprises, we’re down to this: a final baker’s dozen chasing one of poker’s more esoteric bracelets. The chip counts tell their own story, though numbers rarely capture the full narrative.
Ryutaro Suzuki leads with 1,570,000. Shaun Deeb sits second with 1,530,000. And there’s Kihara in third, nursing 1,155,000 chips like a man who knows exactly how much ammunition he needs.
The Swedish contingent has Per Hildebrand representing with 1,110,000. John Monnette, David Lin, and John Cynn round out the million-chip club. Below them, the short stacks begin their desperate arithmetic.
Hellmuth’s Mixed Game Quest
Eleven spots from the bottom sits Phil Hellmuth with 620,000 chips. That’s 31 big blinds – enough to maneuver, not enough to relax. The Poker Brat has captured 17 WSOP bracelets, but here’s the thing that gnaws at him: not a single one came in a mixed game format.
He mentioned it during the dinner break, stabbing at a Caesar salad with the intensity of a man possessed. “No-limit hold’em specialist,” he muttered, making air quotes. “They still say that.”
The 2-7 Lowball Championship represents unfinished business. It’s one of those tournaments where the old guard still holds sway, where GTO solvers haven’t quite cracked the code of when to snow and when to stand pat.
The Japanese Wave
What nobody’s really talking about – but everyone’s noticed – is the Japanese presence at this final stretch. Suzuki leading, Kihara in striking distance. It’s part of a larger pattern we’ve been tracking all summer. The satellite grinders from Tokyo and Osaka have been showing up in force, and they’re not just making Day 2s anymore.
Kihara’s style differs markedly from Suzuki’s. Where Suzuki applies pressure like a hydraulic press – steady, relentless, mechanical – Kihara moves in bursts. Long stretches of inactivity punctuated by sudden violence.
During one hand late in Level 18, he tank-folded for nearly four minutes before sliding his cards to the dealer. The very next hand? Instant three-bet, no hesitation whatsoever. It’s the kind of rhythm that drives opponents mad.
The Forgotten Art
There’s something almost quaint about 2-7 Lowball in 2026. No HUD displaying stats. No real-time equity calculations scrolling past. Just cards, chips, and the ability to read the texture of an opponent’s breathing.
Alex Foxen (785,000) understands this. So does Chad Eveslage (770,000). They’ve both been grinding the mixed game circuit long enough to know that sometimes the best hand is seven-five-four-three-two, and sometimes it’s whatever your opponent thinks you have.
The game rewards patience in a way that modern no-limit hold’em doesn’t. You can’t just jam with ace-king and flip coins. You can’t run elaborate multi-barrel bluffs when the board texture changes. You get one draw. One chance to improve. Then you better hope your read was right.
Tomorrow’s Arithmetic
Day 3 starts at 2 PM local time. The plan calls for playing down to a winner, though these mixed game championships have a way of stretching into the small hours. Blinds resume at 10,000/20,000, which means Dan Shak’s 365,000 stack has already crossed into push-or-fold territory.
The rail will be thin. 2-7 Lowball doesn’t draw crowds the way the Main Event does. But for those who understand what they’re watching, tomorrow offers something pure. No ICM considerations until the final table. No pay jump gymnastics. Just the question of who can navigate the peculiar psychology of a game where the nuts loses to a bluff, and the worst possible hand might be exactly what you need.
Kihara checked into his room at Paris Las Vegas seventeen days ago. He’s cashed in four events so far, nothing spectacular, just steady accumulation. “Building for the summer,” he told me in the hallway after bagging his chips.
When I asked what he meant, he smiled and gestured vaguely toward the tournament board, where another forty events still wait to be played.
The Amazon Room empties slowly these days. Security guards yawn through their shifts. The gelato stand does steady business. And somewhere in this casino, thirteen players are running through draw scenarios, trying to find the edge that will deliver them poker’s most understated glory: a bracelet in a game most people don’t even know exists.
Suzuki leads. Deeb lurks. Kihara waits.
The refrigerated air hums through the vents, fighting its endless war against the desert heat.
