World Series of Poker -- Day Five of Main EventChan Still Alive for Third Main Event Title |
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The floor of the Amazon Room is starting to look very bare as tables are being broken and taken away. It’s starting to get down to the nitty gritty of the 2010 World Series of Poker main event, and players are starting to envision making the final table.
There were 574 players who made their way back to the Rio on Wednesday, and only 205 made it through four levels of play. Of the 205, there still are plenty of familiar faces left in the field.
Johnny Chan is still alive and healthy in chips. Chan is looking to score his record-tying 11th bracelet to join Phil Hellmuth atop the bracelet count. Chan also would join Stu Ungar and Johnny Moss as the only players to have three main-event titles.
Chan has been near the top of the chip counts since day 1, and he was able to pick up a huge pot near the end of the day to vault his stack into the top 10.
After Garrett Adelstein raised to 36,000 preflop, Chan made a three-bet to 101,000, and Adelstein moved all in for 970,000, but Chan beat him into the pot.
Adelstein held Q
J
and was in some serious pain against Chan’s K K
. Chan’s pocket kings held up to put his stack up around 2.5 million at that point. Chan ended the day close to that mark and is one of the chip leaders at the end of the day with 2,500,000 in chips.
“I just want to keep focused, try to stay away from big pots, and just try to survive,” said Chan about his thoughts going into day 6. “Hopefully I can just survive, get down to heads up, and that’s where I’ll finish them off.”
Two of the Mizrachi brothers also have survived the day. All four of the brothers made the money in this event, but after Eric fell on day 4, Danny couldn’t survive day 5, finishing in 345th place for $36,463.
Michael and Robert are both still alive at the end of the day, and they will return tomorrow to try to duplicate the feat that they accomplished in the $50,000 Players Championship, wherein they both made the final table. Robert will have lots of work to do since he is very short on chips, but Michael is still near the top of the pack.
Jean-Robert Bellande has a reputation of being broke and living like a millionaire, but he is still alive in this tournament, and a deep run might change that. Bellande finished the day with slightly below an average stack but is still happy with what is going on.
“I’d love be a millionaire living like a millionaire,” joked Bellande. “I don’t know if I’ll change my twitter name (BrokelivingJRB), but right now I’m just excited to still be in this thing.”
Notables who are at the top of the chip counts include Bryn Kenney, Josh Brikis, John Racener, and Matt Affleck. Affleck is making his second consecutive deep run in the main event. In 2009, Affleck had an 81st place finish for $68,979. The young pro will be looking to improve on those results in 2010.
Other notables who made it through the day include Tristan Wade, Phil Galfond, Gabe Costner, Dave Baker, Jesper Hougaard, Adam Levy, and reigning Card Player Player of the Year, Eric Baldwin.
Even with all of the top pros still left in the field, there still were plenty of notables who weren’t fortunate enough to make it through the day.
Jason Mercier, Vanessa Selbst, Sam Farha, Jason Somerville, Alex Jacob, Allie Prescott, and Scotty Nguyen (pictured right) all hit the rail at some point during the day.
Nguyen hit the rail very late in the day, just before players began to bag and tag their chips. He found all of his 310,000 in the middle with A
J, but he was unfortunate to run into Mads Wissing’s K K. Nguyen couldn’t find an ace on the board, and that leaves Johnny Chan as the only remaining player who is a former world champion.
Players will be returning on Thursday at noon to play five levels, with only a couple days left before the final table is set.
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