With 425 players gone, a poker brat leading the pack and the first pay checks looming near, Day 3 of the WPT World Championship marked the business end of the world’s biggest non-WSOP poker tournament.
214 players began Day Three hoping for a slice of the $15 million prize pool, although with the bubble set at the 539th elimination, 114 of them would be walking home with nothing. Among those Joe Seebok, Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy, Phil Ivey, Sammy Farha and Jamie Gold were just some of the more recognisable faces. But the man most disappointed with his elimination will have been Robert Mizrachi, who not only was the bubble-boy, but earned that unfortunate title by virtue of a bad beat, losing with pocket nines against 6s-4s when a board containing three spades gave Loi Phan a flush.
Of course it wasn’t all doom and gloom for the world’s best-known poker players, and for the self-proclaimed best of the lot, poker’s “Special One” Phil Hellmuth, Day Three was another day to savour. He may have a poor record in the World Poker Tour up till now, but the 1989 WSOP champion is one poker’s best front runners, and yesterday he showed why.
Starting with $528,000 the poker brat was at his sneaky best, rarely putting his stack in jeopardy yet still managing to build at an unrelenting pace. Even after losing a $400,000 pot to Shawn Buchanan, and sliding into a trademark tantrum which saw him screaming: “You bluffed $200,000 against the best player in the world on top of his game, you wont make it to the end of the day,” Hellmuth regained his composure, going on to finish the day with over $1.8 million in chips. He will start Day Four still the chip leader.
He will, of course, have competition, and perhaps none more dangerous than Britain’s Roland De Wolfe. De Wolfe is currently in a rich vein of form, having posted three top-two finishes including an EPT title in the last six months. Add that to the WPT title he won in Paris in season 4, and his third-place finish in this event last year, and De Wolfe has all the credentials to win this event. His play at the end of Day Three showed just what he is capable of, as he ran his stack up to $1.3 million by the close of play.
Another player enjoying himself towards the end of the day was Raymond Davis, who scored a series of massive pots that put him second on the leaderboard. Davis began his rush by eliminating David Singer with a flush versus two-pair, and followed that up by busting Chip Reese when his pocket eights held up against Reese’s A-J. Davis then crossed the $1.4 million mark when he sent Steve Wong to the rail with kings versus top pair on the flop, and Davis ended the day a happy man with $1.7 million in chips.
Tomorrow will see two former WSOP champions start inside the top ten chip stacks (Phil Hellmuth and Juan Carlos Mortensen), and a whole host of poker pros still in the hunt. Stay tuned for another cracker at the Bellagio.
Starting tomorrow the top ten chip counts are as follows:
Phil Hellmuth - $1,827,000
Raymond Davis - $1,704,000
Loi Phan - $1,419,000
Kirk Morrison - $1,327,000
Roland De Wolfe - $1,287,000
Thomas Wahlroos - $1,189,000
Can Kim Hua - $1,041,000
Juan Carlos Mortensen - $939,000
Mike Wattel - $935,000
Ian Johns - $862,000
Other notables still in the hunt:
15th – Sorel Mizzi - $703,000
20th – Justin Bonomo - $625,000
22nd – Scott Fishman - $617,000
23rd – Paul Wasicka - $558,000
29th – Lyle Berman - $501,000
31st – Jared Hamby - $494,000
33rd - Marc Goodwin - $427,000