The action at the Borgata in Atlantic City has been rapid as the World Poker Tour’s World Championship has worked its way down to the final 18 players. For the last two days, the man at the helm of the field has been Canada’s Eric Afriat, the winner of the previous tournament, the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown, held just last week.
Day Two saw 200 players return from the 328 entries that were received in the event and it was obvious that they weren’t going to work down to the 36 players the tournament would pay. It was known, however, that the tournament wouldn’t reach its $5 million guaranteed prize pool, which the Borgata dipped into its pockets to meet the overlay. Still, the Day Two action saw Afriat completely dominate the field (ending the day as the only player over one million in chips) among the 68 players that survived the Day Two carnage.
Day Three kicked off on Thursday afternoon as the players made the push towards the money. As Brandon Steven headed to the doors on one of the first hands of the day, Afriat continued to bedevil the field in eliminating Simon Lam. Matt Waxman, Eric Buchman, Lee Markholt and Tony Cousineau would also depart before the first level of the day’s play was completed.
Coming back with 56 players remaining, there were some challengers who would rise to take on Afriat. Ryan D’Angelo was able to mount a charge, even after doubling up Jeremy Kottler, while WPT “Raw Deal” host Tony Dunst started his ascent up the tournament leaderboard in eliminating Mike Leah. Dunst would then make further strides as he took down Kottler when his Big Slick stood against Kottler’s A-J.
After another break for a level change, the play began to slow somewhat as the money bubble approached. Nick Schulman won a race with A-K against Garrett Greer’s pocket nines to eliminate Greer on an A-A-4-10-3 board. In the “lost a race” department was Jeff Gross, who couldn’t catch up to Glenn Lafaye’s pocket Kings and was ushered to the exits. However, the list of players who were able to catch double ups (Brock Parker, Keven Stammen, Blake Bohn and Justin Young, to name a few) were more than those who left (Roland Israelashvili and Phil Hellmuth, most notably).
The money bubble popped in a hand between Maurice Hawkins and Schulman. After Yuval Harosh opened the action and Hawkins and Schulman made the call, a J♦ 10♦ 3♣ flop saw Hawkins fire out and Schulman check-raise for his stack. Harosh was already out of the way after accidentally folding out of turn, but Hawkins wouldn’t give Schulman the hand willingly in making the call. Hawkins was in the lead with his A♦ K♦ against Schulman’s Q-9 off suit (open ended straight draw) and the turn and river wouldn’t cooperate with Schulman. Coming down with a deuce on the turn and an unnecessary Ace on the river, Schulman was out in 37th place and the remaining players were all $30,085 richer.
Following a well-deserved dinner break, the dominoes rapidly began to tumble. Such notables as Athanasios Polychronopoulos (34th place), Jason Koon (32nd), Bohn (31st place at the hands of Afriat), Matt Stout (30th) and Loni Harwood (29th) all were gone in the first level following the dinner break as Afriat continued to hold down the top slot on the leaderboard. Abe Korotki was attempting to keep pace with Afriat, though, as he rocketed up to 1.5 million in chips following his elimination of Jesse Sylvia in 26th place.
The end of the evening’s play came about in stunning fashion. First, Leonardo Palermo, Chris O’Rourke and Jeff Madsen brought out the artillery in getting all in pre-flop, with Palermo and O’Rourke at risk of elimination. It turned out that it wasn’t a great spot for Madsen as his A-K was in difficult shape against O’Rourke’s pocket Aces and Palermo’s pocket Queens. A ten high board didn’t help anyone as it shipped a big pot to O’Rourke, knocked Palermo out in 20th place and put Madsen on only 32K in chips. On the next hand, those chips would end up in the stack of Stammen as Madsen exited in 19th place.
When the 18 men come back for action on Friday, here’s how they’ll line up:
1. Eric Afriat, 2.029 million
2. Abe Korotki, 1.616 million
3. Anthony Gregg, 1.499 million
4. Ryan D’Angelo, 1.369 million
5. Curt Kohlberg, 1.097 million
6. Justin Young, 993,000
7. Byron Kaverman, 974,000
8. Ray Quartomy, 955,000
9. Keven Stammen, 867,000
10. Brock Parker, 819,000
11. Tom Dobrilovic, 786,000
12. Chris O’Rourke, 670,000
13. Tony Dunst, 622,000
14. Corey Hochman, 598,000
15. Bobby Oboodi, 525,000
16. Glenn Lafaye, 395,000
17. Hans Winzeler, 329,000
18. David Grandieri, 269,000
Although he’s been on a heater the last two weeks, Afriat faces some challenges if he is to make his second consecutive WPT final table and potentially become the second-ever back-to-back WPT champion (Marvin Rettenmaier pulled off the trick previously). Gregg will be on his immediate left and will have Parker on the button when he is the big blind. On the other table, it will be a melee as Stammen, Korotki and D’Angelo are in Seats 1, 2 and 4, respectively.
The Day Four action could be lengthy as the objective of today’s play is to reach the WPT final table of six players. The rewards for being one of those six are rich as the sixth place slot pays out $235,341. The next WPT World Champion will take home a neat $1.35 million for their efforts in Atlantic City.