The 2013 World Series of Poker has reached the one-third mark of its 62 event schedule. While it was expected that one event would award a bracelet last night, play was suspended early this morning as the final two combatants reached the “ten level rule” cutoff without determining a champion.
Event #20 – $1500 Omaha Hold’em Hi/Lo
With 22 players returning for the Day Three fight on Wednesday, Dale Beaudoin held the lead over a very strong field. While he was stacked decently with 465,000 in chips, Beaudoin had a host of notable names chasing him down the leaderboard. Sitting in third at the start of the day was veteran poker professional Can Kim Hua (oddly enough, Hua has never won a WSOP bracelet), while Todd Brunson, John Monnette, Maria Ho and Jennifer Harman were lurking down the board looking to make their moves.
There were concerns that the Day Three combatants wouldn’t be able to make it to the bracelet on Wednesday night/Thursday morning, but there was hope after the first hour. Unfortunately, the ladies were the first to go, with Harman falling at the hands of Brunson and Ho dropping out in 21st place after Calen McNeil beat her A-A-2-9 with his K-J-7-6 rainbow on a Q-10-6-J-3 board. After Eric Judge and Viacheslav Zhukov were eliminated at the end of the first hour, the field was brought down to 18 players.
Over the next three hours, those 18 men became ten as they moved the unofficial final table to the Mothership to take up the fight. Hua had surged to the lead at this point, with Brunson and Monnette hot on his heels, while Beaudoin began to falter. He lost a huge pot without a showdown against McNeil to see his stack slip to just over 100K and, in the span of another 20 minutes, saw the rest of those chips head to the stack of Stephen Chidwick as he departed the Rio as the final table bubble boy.
Starting at around 6PM (Pacific Time), the remaining nine players began the arduous task of getting down to a winner. McNeil would assume the lead after knocking off Dao Bac in ninth place, while Tony Ma improved a smaller stack with his elimination of Won Goag in eighth. Hua, meanwhile, continued to stretch out his lead and, after taking a pot against Brunson, saw his chip count move up to over 1.2 million as the dinner bell rang.
Monnette would fall at the hands of McNeil after dinner to provide a challenger to Hua as the field scurried behind them to try to challenge the duo. McNeil would continue to charge, knocking out Chidwick in sixth, while Brunson and Joe Ford ended the day for Ma in fifth when they split a pot. By the time that Hua eliminated Ford in fourth place, an exciting battle was set between the final three men.
McNeil had stretched out his lead at this point, leading Hua by almost 800K in chips, while Brunson looked to get his roller coaster ride heading on the upward track. It would take almost two hours before Brunson’s day would come to a close in third place, with Hua taking most of his chips before McNeil finished him off. Down to heads up play, Hua had passed McNeil as they settled in for the battle.
After 40 minutes of play, McNeil was able to reverse the positions between him and Hua, establishing a 2:1 chip lead. Hua fought back, winning a big pot in a “boat versus boat” situation when his 9-9-7-4 was able to defeat McNeil’s Q-4-2-2 on a 2-9-Q-5-5 board, to retake the lead. As the tenth level came to a close, McNeil would seize another big pot to retake the advantage. WSOP officials asked the men if they wanted to continue on another level to determine the champion, but both men decided to get a good night’s rest before coming back today at 1PM to finish the tournament off:
Calen McNeil, 3.47 million
Can Kim Hua, 1.1 million
The man who survives the battle today will take down the $277,274 first place prize and the WSOP bracelet, while second place will earn a nice consolation in a $171,577 payday.
Event #21 – $3000 Six Handed No Limit Hold’em
While they are not quite yet at the final table, the Event #21 players will also award a bracelet on Thursday and the field looks quite formidable.
13 players will come back for today’s Day Three play with Matt Stout leading the way as the only player over the million chip mark with 1.268 million (surprisingly, Stout only has two six figure cashes in his career, according to the Hendon Mob database; a fourth place finish in this tournament will give him his third). Benjamin Pollak is a distant second place with his 756,000 in chips, while David “The Dragon” Pham, Dan Kelly, Martin Finger, eight-time WSOP bracelet winner Erik Seidel and Nick Schulman arranged over the leaderboard.
When the champion is crowned tonight, that player will have earned his WSOP bracelet and the $506,764 that goes with it for a difficult three days of play against an 807 player field.
