With Day 4 in the books, the six-handed final table of the World Poker Tour (WPT) Lucky Hearts Poker Open is set. And while there may be six players at the table, it appears, at this point, that it will come down to two: Mark Dube and Brian Altman. The two men, who led the field going into the day, emerged from Tuesday’s action with overwhelming leads on the other four players. Dube has the largest stack with 11.62 million chips, while Altman holds 10.33 million.
To look at this from another angle, the other four players combined do not have as many chips as Altman (and obviously not as many as Dube). Dube and Altman hold 71 percent of the total chips at the table. The third place player, Kelly Minkin, would have to triple-up to surpass Altman (in a vacuum, as some of those chips could obviously come from one of the leaders). Sanjay Gehi, sitting in fourth place, would have to quadruple-up. John Graham and Greg Rosen, holding 1.4 million and 1.15 million chips, respectively, are basically in “a chip and a chair” mode at this point.
It looks like, based on reports from WPT.com, Dube and Altman basically threw their weight around most of the day to build up their stacks. Of the hands that were reported, Altman had the biggest ones. One of his most significant moves came early in the day while his stack was still below 5 million. He raised pre-flop to 90,000, two players called, and Sergii Baranov three-bet to 340,000. Altman four-bet up to 650,000, the two callers got out of the way, and Baranov called. On the flop of 9♦-7♥-3♦, Baranov moved all-in for 1.5 million chips and Altman made the call. Baranov had A♦-Q♦ for two over-cards and the nut flush draw, while Altman held K♣-K♥, an over-pair to the board. Baranov was unable to hit his flush or pair his Ace on either the turn or river and Altman took the huge pot, while Baranov was eliminated in 17th place.
Aside from the gigantic leads for Dube and Altman, the other big story of the final table is the presence of Kelly Minkin. Never in the history of the World Poker Tour has a woman won an official WPT title in an open event. Natalia Nikitina, won the WPT National Event in Paris a few years ago, but that is not recognized by the Tour as an “official” WPT championship. Women have won ladies events and invitationals as well, but as those are not open events, they do not count for this discussion’s purposes. Minkin clearly has a steep hill to climb despite being in third place, but this is poker and things can change with the flip of a card.
The final table will begin at 1:00pm ET, with a live stream on WPT.com starting at 1:30pm.
2015 World Poker Tour Lucky Hearts Poker Open Main Event – Final Table Chip Counts
1. Mark Dube – 11,620,000
2. Brian Altman – 10,330,000
3. Kelly Minkin – 3,780,000
4. Sanjay Gehi – 2,515,000
5. Jon Graham – 1,400,000
6. Greg Rosen – 1,150,000
