Could the final table of the World Poker Tour (WPT) bestbet Jacksonville Fall Poker Scramble Main Event be a race for second place? It is possible, as Jared Jaffee has a sizeable lead on the rest of the field heading into Day 4. With 3,650,000 chips, he has double the chips of his closest competitor.
After Jaffee, it is a logjam. The next four places range from 1,720,000 chips to 1,400,000. Randall Price is the short stack entering final table play with 940,000 chips. Thus, Jaffee is obviously in a great position to win the tournament, though all it will take is one big hand for any of the four trailing him to get right back in the game. And if that big hand comes at Jaffee’s expense, he will be one of the players back in the pack.
While Jaffee has never won a World Poker Tour event, he is no stranger to the end game in these tourneys. In 2010, he placed 4th in the WPT Southern Poker Championship Championship Event ($135,079) and 5th in the Legends of Poker Championship Event ($86,000). He had some success at the World Series of Poker this year, as well, finishing 3rd in the $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em Four-Handed Event ($129,447). All told, he has won over a million dollars in his live tournament career.
Jared Jaffee began Day 3 9th out of 23 players with 551,000 chips. In most tournaments, the end of day chip leader uses one or two big hands to build most of his stack, but in Jaffee’s case, it was a very slow climb throughout the day. With just 10 players remaining, he was still well under a million chips and even as he accelerated his chip accumulation, it still had more to do with good, solid pots, rather than just one big one.
As it turned out, his biggest leap came very close to the end of the day. With nine players remaining, Ryan Eriquezzo raised pre-flop to 60,000 and Jaffee three-bet to 160,000. Everyone folded back to Eriquezzo, who moved all-in for 835,000 in total. After a short bit of pondering, Jaffee made the call with A♠-Q♠. Eriquezzo showed 7♣-7♦ and the race was on. It was a good news, bad news flop for both players: A♣-9♣-2♣. On the one hand, it paired Jaffee’s Ace to give him the lead, but on the other hand, Eriquezzo now had a flush draw going with two cards to come. No more clubs hit the board though (nor did the last two 7’s) and Eriquezzo was eliminated in 8th place.
That pot took Jaffee’s stack up to 3,740,000, about where it would be when the night came to a close.
The final table will commence at 2:00pm ET Tuesday as the six remaining players battle for the quarter-million dollar first prize.
World Poker Tour bestbet Jacksonville Fall Poker Scramble Main Event – Final Table Chip Counts
1. Jared Jaffee — 3,650,000
2. Margo Costa — 1,720,000
3. Michael Horchoff — 1,525,000
4. Corrie Wunstel — 1,495,000
5. Blake Purvis — 1,400,000
6. Randall Price — 940,000
