WPT: Festa al Lago Day 4

The fast-paced bustout bonanza that is the 2008 WPT Festa al Lago finally came grinding to a halt on Friday. With two days to get from 34 to the final 6, the hope was that the field would continue its frantic pace so that the final tablists could get a day off before the televised battle for $1.4 million. But when the final two tables were assembled, the action slowed to a crawl. Tournament director Jack McClelland ruled that the tournament would pause once the field reached nine or at the conclusion of five levels, whichever came first. When the final second ticked off the fifth level, there were still 12 players remaining.

At the end of day 1, Antonio Esfandiari led the field, but he was not able to survive the next day. Day 2 chip leader Daniel Negreanu also faltered and was one of three bubble victims. Sitting with the chip lead heading into day 4, Ryan Fair clearly had the target on his stack all day long. As if almost by fate, Fair was the last elmination of the night, being sent home in 13th place. At the end of the night, EPT PCA winner Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier had the (un)fortunate honor of the chip lead. We'll see if he can avoid the curse of the chip leader as he guns for his first WPT final table.

Other notables who were eliminated before the day ended were J.J Liu (34th), Abe Mosseri (33rd), Blake Cahail (32nd), Chris Bjorin (31st), Joe "ender555" Ebanks (26th), Dutch Boyd (25th), Brad Booth (22nd), Isaac "westmenloAA" Baron (21st), Erica Schoenberg (20th), Scott Clements (19th), Bryan Devonshire (18th), Jamie "TheCronic420" Rosen (17th), Justin Bonomo (16th), Daniel Alaei (15th), and Johan "busto_soon" Til (14th).

The biggest hand of the tournament came down in an atypical set over set confrontation between Osmin "Oddie" Dardon and Olav Sachsen. The flop came out 1084 and Sachsen checked. Mike Wattel then bet 50,000 and Dardon thought a moment before making it 125,000. The action moved over to Sachsen who tanked for several minutes before his trembling hands pushed forward a raise to 375,000. Wattel quickly folded and the action was back on Dardon.

Dardon tanked for about a minute before he asked Sachsen how much he has behind. The count was 290,000 and Dardon quickly did the math. He had both the raise and the amount behind covered, but something was bothering him. After about another minute of thought, Dardon mucked 44 face up stunning the entire table.

Dardon walked away from the table, towards the balcony overlooking the Bellagio fountain, when Sachsen showed his 1010 to the rest of the table. Dardon was informed he made the right decision and he immediately burst into celebration, giving fist pumps on the balcony for several minutes before returning to the table. Sachsen rode that momentum to a large stack and Dardon survived the encounter to fight again tommorow.

Here is the seating charts and chip counts for the remaining 12 players:

Table 1
Seat 1: Adam "Roothlus" Levy - 568,000
Seat 2: Nenad Medic - 1,435,000
Seat 3: Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier - 2,039,000
Seat 4: Will Mietz - 1,840,000
Seat 5: Jimmy Tran - 739,000
Seat 6: Nam Le - 1,149,000

Table 2
Seat 1: Joe Sebok - 1,470,000
Seat 2: Michael DeMichele - 1,717,000
Seat 3: Mike Wattel - 886,000
Seat 4: Andrew "good2cu" Robl - 1,087,000
Seat 5: Osmin "Oddie" Dardon - 1,959,000
Seat 6: Olav  Von Sachsen - 1,631,000

Related Articles

Ren Lin Victorious At WPT Wynn Alpha8

Eibinger Wins Triton Monte Carlo Main Event

Bonomo Hero Calls Way To Poker Masters $25k Win

Most Viewed Articles