Day 4 at the WPT Doyle Brunson Classic

The 44 players that began day 4 of the Doyle Brunson Classic owned 14 World Poker Tour titles between them. These titles were spread between 10 players in the field as follows:

Gus Hansen: (3 WPT titles)
Daniel Negreanu: (2 WPT titles)
Erick Lindgren: (2 WPT titles)
Eric Hershler: (1 WPT title)
Hoyt Corkins: (1 WPT title)
Roy Winston: (1 WPT title)
Ryan Daut: (1 WPT title)
David "Devilfish" Ulliott: (1 WPT title)
Andreas Walnum: (1 WPT title)
Jose Rosenkrantz: (1 WPT title)

Throw in one former world champion (Huck Seed), a few of the most respected high-stakes cash-game players in the world (Todd Brunson and Daniel Alaei), and an array of talented hopefuls and you find one tough crowd to play poker against.

The day started with a couple of the big names falling out of contention in quick succession. Winston was the first player to fall in 44th place, and he was quickly followed to the rail by Alaei, Rosenkrantz, and Marcel "The Flying Dutchman" Luske. The eliminations continued steadily, and after the first break only 37 players remained.

Walnum quietly exited following the break, and he was quickly followed to the rail by Corkins. The first two levels were undoubtedly rough on the former WPT champions - only half of the original 10 remained. That trend was finally put to rest when Negreanu scored a huge pot:

Negreanu raised to 40,000 from early position and David "Bakes" Baker reraised to 140,000 out of the small blind. Negreanu called and the two saw a flop of 10 8 4. Baker immediately announced he was all in and Negreanu quickly called. Baker asked "You got a set?" and Negreanu nodded his head in reply. Baker showed down A K and Negreanu turned up pocket eights. The turn was the J, and the river was the 2, which doubled up Negreanu to 1,155,000.

While Negreanu had no trouble increasing his stack, others were busting at a rapid pace. Baker was eliminated shortly after doubling up Negreanu, followed by Quinn Do, Max Pescatori, Vivek "psyduck" Rajkumar, and Seed.

Lindgren then lost half of his stack in an influential hand: Lindgren raised to 45,000 and Bill Kontaratos made the call. The flop brought Q 9 4 and both players checked it down. The turn was the 3, Lindgren bet 80,000, and Kontaratos raised to 200,000. Lindgren made the call and the river brought the J. Lindgren checked, Kontaratos bet 200,000, and Lindgren made the call. Kontaratos turned up pocket fours for a flopped set and Lindgren mucked his hand. Lindgren was down to 225,000 after the hand (Lindgren would recover and survive the day with 1,571,000), while Kontaratos sky-rocketed up to 1.97 million. Kontaratos was able to carry this momentum past the 2-million chip summit, but Negreanu quickly joined him in the exclusive club atop the leader board.

While one of the former champions challenged for the chip lead, yet another met an untimely end. Hansen got his short stack all in against Ryan Daut preflop. Hansen showed down A K and he was happy to see Daut turn over K J. The board came K Q 7 3 J and Daut rivered a jack to send Hansen to the rail in 22nd place.

Action was set to end when the final 18 were reached, and now that that mark was so tantalizingly close, play amongst the field seemed to grind to a halt. It took over an hour to lose the final three, which included Mikael Thuritz (21st place), Hershler (20th place), and Daniel Donati (19th place). During this final stretch of play Negreanu used his large stack to really pull away from the field and he finished the day with 2,279,000. When the dust settled, Negreanu was joined by Lindgren, Daut, and Ulliot as the only former WPT champions to survive the day. Here is a look at the final chip counts:

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