In a tournament that started with 575 players, the final six are split between two generations -- three players are under 25, and three are over 40. But don't write off these youngsters as inexperienced, because two of them just happen to be defending champions here at the
World Poker Tour World Poker Finals at Foxwoods.
Nick Schulman became the youngest
WPT champion in history when he won this event two years ago at the age of 21, and
Nenad Medic was 23 when he won last year. If either player wins tonight, it will be the first time in
WPT history that a player has won the same
WPT tournament twice. Keep in mind that neither was old enough to play in casinos when the
WPT began playing in 2002.
When play began on day 5, Schulman was in strong shape with more than a million in chips, and he quickly moved into the top spot, seeming to coast for the rest of the day. Medic, however, had a much tougher road to the final table, struggling to stay alive near the bottom of the leader board.
With 19 players remaining at the start of the day, two long-time poker pros were in control --
WPT titleholder and
World Series of Poker H.O.R.S.E. champion
Freddy Deeb was the chip leader, and the legendary poker Hall of Famer
T.J. Cloutier was in second place. Deeb reached the final table of 10 players, but Cloutier busted in 12th place.
Deeb spent most of this tournament near the top of the leader board, but things took a turn for the worst on Monday. In the most dramatic hand of the day, Deeb laid down pocket kings preflop with nine players left, saying, "In all the years I've been playing tournament poker, I've never been in this situation." Mike Vela had limped under the gun, Deeb raised,
John Myung reraised behind him, and Vela moved all in for nearly 2 million. Deeb, certain that Vela had aces, folded his pocket kings. Unfortunately for him, it turned out to be the wrong play, as Vela also had pocket kings, and went on to win a huge pot against Myung's pocket tens. Deeb was eliminated about an hour later in ninth place.
Here are the official chip counts for Tuesday night's
WPT final table, along with the remaining prize pool:
Seat 1 -- Nenad Medic -- 555,000
Seat 2 --
Mike Vela -- 4,155,000
Seat 3 --
Mark Weitzman -- 855,000
Seat 4 --
Mike White -- 2,455,000
Seat 5 -- Nick Schulman -- 4,395,000
Seat 6 --
Tom "Durrr" Dwan -- 4,875,000
First -- $1,704,986 (plus a $25,500 seat in the
WPT World Championship); second - - $864,652; third -- $486,367; fourth -- $324,244; fifth -- $243,184; sixth -- $189,142
Now for a deeper look at the six players who make up this
WPT final table.
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Seat 1
Nenad Medic
555,000 in chips
Nenad Medic (online name: Serb) is the defending champion of this event, outlasting 608 players last year to claim the first prize of $1.7 million. If he wins tonight, Medic will be the first player in history to win back-to-back titles in the same
WPT tournament. As the short-stack headed to the final table, Medic definitely faces an uphill battle.
This is Medic's ninth cash in
WPT events, and his third
WPT Final Table -- he also finished sixth in the Season IV
PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. Medic has more than $2.3 million in career earnings, and a victory tonight would take him over $3.6 million, moving him up to seventh place on the all-time earnings list for the
WPT.
Medic is definitely a player on the rise, breaking into the poker scene with his final table in the Caribbean before finishing third in the 2006
Aussie Millions, and winning this event later that year. Regardless of his finish here, this Canadian player looks to remain a force on the tour for a long time to come.
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Seat 2
Mike Vela
4,155,000 in chips
If asked what he considers to be his home casino, Mike Vela will tell you it's Foxwoods. (I know, because I asked him.) He's done well here -- earlier this year he made back-to-back prelim final tables during the
Foxwoods Poker Classic.
While this is Vela's first
WPT final table, he's reached the final two tables twice, finishing 13th in this event last year and 18th at the
WPT Borgata Poker Open two months ago.
Vela is currently making the most of a single $1,100 entry into a Borgata supersatellite several months ago. He won a $40,000 package that included $10,000 in cash, entry into the
WPT Borgata Poker Open (where he finished 18th), entry into the
WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open (in January 2008), and entry into this event at Foxwoods -- where he's guaranteed to finish sixth or higher. If he can cash in all three events, it will be an amazing trifecta, and if he can take first in this one or the next one, he'll further parlay it with an entry into the Season VI
WPT World Championship in April, 2008.
Vela is the senior vice president of an investment company, and he's been playing poker for four years. Between work and poker, this native New Yorker still sets aside time for his two kids, and coaches his son's baseball team.
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Seat 3
Mark Weitzman
855,000 in chips
Mark Weitzman has been a professional poker player for 21 years, with six
World Series of Poker final tables under his belt (four of them in variations of deuce-to-seven lowball). This is just the fourth
WPT tournament that Weitzman has entered, but he has already reached his second final table. Perhaps he shouldn't have waited until season six to enter
WPT events.
Weitzman finished fourth at the
WPT Borgata Poker Open two months ago, earning $380,000 for the biggest cash of his career. His career tournament earnings come to more than $750,000, and if he finishes fifth or better, he'll cross the coveted million-dollar mark.
Born in Israel and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Weitzman currently lives in Las Vegas. After two decades as a professional poker player, Weitzman would like to return to school for a Ph.D. in physics.
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Seat 4
Mike White
2,455,000 in chips
Mike White is a local player from Hartford, Connecticut, so you might say he represents the home team -- in more ways than one. He actually earned his entry by winning a $1,200 satellite among friends, and he's making the most of the opportunity.
White has more than $150,000 in live tournament winnings, including a cash in the 2006
WSOP main event and an 18th-place finish in the 2004
U.S. Poker Championship. This
WPT final table represents the highlight of his poker career -- even a disappointing sixth-place finish would more than double his career earnings. Of course he's hoping to do far better than that.
White owns a commercial construction business, and he actually has to be at work at 5:00 am before this final table -- he didn't plan to make it this far and didn't make arrangements for someone to cover for him. But White promises to make it back to Foxwoods in time to hear Mike Sexton say, "Shuffle up and deal."
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Seat 5
Nick Schulman
4,395,000 in chips
Nick Schulman is another former winner of this event. He was less than two months past his 21st birthday when he won this event two years ago, making him the youngest
WPT champion in the show's history -- a record that still stands.
Since then, Schulman has continued to build his poker résumé, adding a victory in the
WPT Battle of Champions IV, a fourth-place finish in a
WSOP Tournament Circuit championship, and a
WSOP final table. With more than $2.2 million in
WPT earnings, a victory here would catapult him into fifth place on the all-time
WPT list with just under $4 million.
It should come as no surprise that the youngest
WPT champion honed his chops by playing online poker (under the name "TheTakeover"), though Schulman first started playing the game live in pool halls.
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Seat 6
Tom Dwan
4,875,000 in chips
Tom Dwan is a well-known online player who goes by the name "Durrr" (though the number of r's in "Durrr" varies from site to site). He has entered several
WPT events since turning 21 years old a little more than three months ago, and this will be his first televised final table. (For those keeping track, Dwan is a few weeks too old to break Schulman's record as the youngest
WPT champion.)
Dwan starts the final table as the chip leader, but his lead is hardly safe with two players close behind him -- Schulman and Vela. Dwan is no stranger to the chip lead, because he's been near the top of the leader board for most of this tournament.
Dwan attended Boston University as an English major, but he dropped out after one year, and has been playing poker for the past four years or so. He has impressive results online, but this final table shows he can also hold his own with the best live tournament players in the world.
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Will this final table bring the first repeat champion (Medic or Schulman) in
WPT history? Or will chip leader Dwan have a breakout performance on TV the way that Schulman did two years ago? These youngsters will have to get past two local players sure to have plenty of fans in the audience (White and Vela), and a 20-year professional . As you can see, there's plenty to root for.
The
WPT final table is scheduled to begin at 5 pm ET, and will continue until a champion is declared -- possibly a repeat champion. Return to
CardPlayer.com for complete live coverage of every check, bet, call, raise, and fold.
