There is only way to go when you’re at the top so they say, and much to his chagrin Phil Hellmuth discovered the truth of this saying yesterday on Day 4 of the biggest poker tournament of the year.
The self-styled ‘poker brat’ began Day Four of the WPT World Championship in great position, leading the surviving 54 players with a healthy $1.8 million chip stack, to go with his twenty years of experience at the top of the tournament game. Sometimes however, that’s not quite enough, as Hellmuth with all his knowledge of the game knows only too well.
Most of the damage occurred in the space of a few hands, when Hellmuth doubled up both David Levi and then Sorel Mizzi in quick succession. In the first hand Hellmuth called Levi’s all-in push on a king high flop with K-Q, but lost out to A-K. Then the 1989 WSOP champ made a strange play against internet legend Mizzi, calling a bet on the turn with the board showing A-9-4-A and saying “I need a jack!” Well sure enough the next card out was a jack, and Hellmuth called quickly when Sorel Mizzi pushed all-in, but then mucked when Mizzi flipped over pocket nines for a full house. He gave no hint as to what hand he could have had to explain why he called for a jack, and the two hits left him with less than $1 million in chips.
Meanwhile another WSOP main-event champion, the 2001 winner Carlos “el Matador” Mortensen, was enjoying the kind of day Phil Hellmuth would have given his right arm for. Mortensen, already a member of the exclusive club Hellmuth so yearns to join, that of players who have won both the WSOP main-event and a WPT title, won the biggest pot of the day when his flopped set of sevens held up against Raymond Davis’s nut flush draw, raking in a monster $2.8 million pot.
It was also a fine day for Kirk Morrison, who won the following crazy hand just before the end of play to place him second don the leaderboard. After limping preflop along with Thomas Wahlroos both players call a $100,000 bet from Can Kim Hua to see a flop of 8h-7c-5d. On the flop Wahlroos leads out for $200,000, Morrison flat calls, and Can Kim Hua raises to $600,000. With Wahlroos folding Morrison then moves all-in over the top, and the fun starts. After a period of contemplation from Hua, Morrison flips up his cards, the 8d-7d, saying he heard Hua call. But the dealer says he didn’t hear anything, and despite Wahlroos backing-up Morrison and saying he also heard Hua call, the floor sides with the dealer and Hua is allowed to make a decision. He ponders for some time and then folds pocket nines face up. Morrison, despite the controversy, rakes in a huge pot which takes his stack up to $2.9 million.
But when all was said and done, this day really belonged to Paul Lee. Lee started the day in 25th place, but began a dramatic move up the leaderboard when he flopped top set against Loi Phan, and moved all-in blind on the turn after Phan called his bet on the flop. Phan considered his position for sometime before calling with top pair top kicker, with which he was drawing dead. That win put Lee up to around the $1.3 million mark and gave him a confidence boost with which the Los Angeles resident never looked back, eventually ending the day as chip leader with $3.6 million.
Here are the chip counts going into Day Five:
1 - Paul Lee - $3,601,000
2 - Kirk Morrison - $2,980,000
3 - Juan Carlos Mortensen - $2,429,000
4 - Sorel Mizzi - $2,256,000
5 - Thomas Wahlroos - $1,847,000
6 - Benjamin Johnson - $1,280,000
7 - Thien “Tim” Phan - $1,273,000
8 - Scott Fischman - $1,268,000
9 - David Levi - $1,258,000
10 - Guy Laliberte - $1,232,000
16th – Can Kim Hua - $760,000
18th – Phil Hellmuth - $738,000
20th – Paul Wasicka - $581,000
23rd – Roland De Wolfe - $460,000
27 players remain