The World Poker Tour (WPT) Lucky Hearts Poker Open Main Event began Day 3 with 36 players situated around four tables and ended with the skilled and fortunate six who made the final table. Matt Giannetti leads the way heading into Tuesday’s action with just over 3 million chips. Nobody has fewer than 20 big blinds, though, so it is still anybody’s tourney.
The final table shapes up to be an interesting one. In Giannetti and Matt Salsberg (5th place – 980,000 chips), you have two players who have already earned their way into the WPT Champions Club by winning World Poker Tour Main Events. Giannetti won the 2011 WPT Malta Main Event, good for $276,457 (€200,000), while Salsberg cashed for $478,415 (€380,000) when he won the 2012 WPT Rendez-Vous à Paris Main Event.
The intrigue between Giannetti and Salsberg extends past their WPT titles, though. Giannetti, as poker fans may recall, was a member of this past year’s World Series of Poker (WSOP) November Nine, finishing 4th in the WSOP Main Event. Salsberg just finished 6th in last month’s WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open Main Event, becoming one of the few players to reach back-to-back World Poker Tour final tables.
Then there is the player who is currently the short stack at the Lucky Hearts final table (6th place – 860,000 chips), Fort Lauderdale, Florida’s Lily Kiletto. With a very sparse live tournament resume (her largest cash, $7,000, was earned in a preliminary event during this same poker festival), Kiletto has the opportunity to become the first woman to win an official open event on the World Poker Tour. France’s Natalia Nikitina did win the WPT Paris title in 2011, but that was a WPT Regional event and does not count as an official WPT title, not does it award any WPT Player of the Year points. A technicality maybe, but it still leaves the door open for Lily Kiletto to make history.
Also at the table is Darryll Fish (2nd place – 2,660,000 chips), who has six career WPT cashes, including a final table at the 2011 WPT Jacksonville and one other top ten finish, and 16 WSOP cashes. Hayden Fortini, the chip leader going into Monday’s play, is still alive, sitting in 4th place with 1,620,000 chips.
Today’s final table will not be televised, but fans can still watch the action “virtually live” starting at 3:30pm ET. WPT.com will be streaming every hand with a 30-minute delay. Play will begin in the middle of Level 26 with blinds and antes at 20,000/40,000/5,000.
2013 WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open Main Event – Final Table Chip Counts
1. Matt Giannetti – 3,005,000
2. Darryll Fish – 2,660,000
3. Danny Shiff – 1,930,000
4. Hayden Fortini – 1,620,000
5. Matt Salsberg – 980,000
6. Lily Kiletto – 860,000
