539 down, six to go; the WPT Borgata Open has reached the final table stage but sadly without its most glamorous participant. Jennifer Tilly performed superbly to reach the end of Day Three in fourth place but the Unabomber’s other half wasn’t able to push her chip advantage on to the final table. She wasn’t the only one however, with only three of the top ten chip leaders at the start of Day Four suriving till the end of the day.

Tilly got off to the perfect start, adding over $300k to her chip stack within 15 minutes of the “shuffle up and deal” announcement when she cracked John Phan’s pocket aces with a flopped set of twos. She then continued her good play and was unlucky to lose a $300k pot to Brock Parker after a nine on the turn gave him top two-pair against Tilly’s top pair better kicker.

That pot dented Tilly’s stack somewhat but with just 15 players left she was still going strong when she ran headfirst into Mark Newhouse. In a curious hand Tilly raised to $60k preflop and was called by Newhouse. The flop came Kh-Jh-7d and Tilly bet $95k, again Newhouse called. The turn was the Qc and Tilly fired out a considerable $300k bet, only for Newhouse to move all-in over the top. Tilly went into the tank, thinking for several minutes before deciding she had to make the call, turning over Qs-7s for two pair. Newhouse however had turned the nut straight with Ah-Td and an Ac on the river was no help to Tilly who was out in 15th ($52,380).

It was not the first, nor would it be the last, fortunate hand that Mark Newhouse was involved in that day. The man who ended the day with a huge chip lead was playing extremely aggressive poker and this inevitably got him in a few sticky spots, most of which he extricated himself from with a fortunate fall of the cards. In one such hand he rivered a flush with pocket nines when all-in preflop against the pocket rockets of Brock Parker. He was also lucky to knock out Bill Blanda after committing nearly $700,000 chips on a ten high flush draw. Blanda’s set of fives were vanquished when the 2 of diamonds fell on the turn completing Newhouse’s hand. With just 8 players remaining Newhouse added a considerable amount to his stack when he caught Athanasio Diakos on a steal. This time he needed no luck with QQ against KT and he ended the day with over $7 million in chips.

Newhouse was joined at the top of the pack by the two Chris’s: Bell and McCormack. Bell, who won the Trump Classic in 2005, was on fire and would have been in second place but for a big late blow to his stack. But it was the man who administered that blow, Chris McCormack, who was the talking point of Day Four.

McCormack began the day in 26th place out of 27 players. With just $180,000 in chips he would need help and fast, and it arrived in the shape of two pocket aces. The two aces became four when all-in against Shane Smith’s KK and the quads crushed his opponents hand, helping to propel McCormack’s stack to just over $300k. For his next big win McCormack had to recruit the services of lady luck, as with all his chips committed on a board showing Q-6-5 his Q-J was a big dog to Ronnie Ebanks’ KK. A five on the turn meant he was down to just two outs (the two remaining queens), but the Qc rode in on the river to rescue him. McCormack went on to eliminate Bruce Yamron and Steve Leveson in 17th and 13th place respectively and then had his biggest win of the night. With just seven players remaining McCormack called a $120k preflop raise by Chris Bell to see a flop of Ks-Th-6d. Bell bet $150k and McCormack check-raised him to $450k, only for Bell to re-raise to $1.4 million. McCormack made the call for his last $1.3 million and Bell turned over K-T for top two pair, but McCormack flipped up pocket sixes for a set. The Ad turn and 8h river helped neither player, and McCormack had doubled up to over $3 million. Bell was down to $1.5 million.

Not long after that hand Bell finished off the shortstacked Louis Rosso when his Kh-Td overcame Rosso’s pocket nines and we had our final table. Play will resume tomorrow at 5pm EST with the final six players:

Mark Newhouse $7,025,000
Chris McCormack $3,000,000
Chris Bell $1,200,000
Blaise Ingoglia $840,000
Anthony Argila $700,000
David Sklansky $665,000

Submitted: 20/09/2006 11:21:41