The final table has been determined for the World Poker Tour’s stop at the Borgata Poker Open in Atlantic City, NJ this afternoon and, from all appearances, it might be a quick one. Farid Jattin is the overwhelming leader of the final six, holding more than half the chips in play when the cards hit the air today.
30 men came back on Thursday to whittle their way down to the traditional WPT six-handed final table. At the top of the heap to start the day was WPT champion Matt Waxman with his 2.791 million chips, but Simon Lam (2.268 million), Jattin (2.16 million) and Phong Vip Nguyen (two million even) all joined him in the two million chip club atop the leaderboard. Lurking down the leaderboard were such dangerous pros as Paul Volpe, former “November Niner” Jesse Sylvia and John Racener.
On the very first hand of the day, Chris Limo would knock off Shawn Daniels (Limo’s pocket Aces were never threatened by Daniels’ Big Slick on a seven-high board) in 30th place and the knockouts kept coming. Waxman would improve on his leading stack in eliminating Carl Leckner in 29th place, while Jattin attempted to keep pace in taking out Joseph Chaplin in 27th place. Jattin would move into the lead after about an hour of action with a hand that was strangely played from the start.
After Robert Castoire raised the action, Jattin three-bet him out of the small blind and Castoire made the call. It was checked through by both men on a Q-8-7-5-A board, at which point the strangeness began. Castoire could only show K♥ 10♥ for absolute air, but Jattin showed an A-8 that, after flopping a pair, improved to two pair by the river. The strangeness of the hand – Castoire’s lack of anything and Jattin not betting out for value at least on the river – had many on the rail talking.
Waxman wasn’t pleased about giving up the lead and demonstrated that in cutting chips out of Sylvia’s stack to break the four million chip mark. Instead of going away, however, Sylvia made a comeback of his own, chipping up with a double through Aaron Overton. By the time play was down to the final 18 men, Waxman and Jattin were atop the standings with Racener in pursuit.
Jattin took a hit when he gave up a pot to Zachary Gruneberg, dropping under 2.5 million in chips, but this seemed to be the last time he made a misstep. He used the double elimination of Tong En Zhang and Castoire in 15th and 16th places, respectively, to climb to nearly five million in chips and Jattin wouldn’t look back. Jattin cracked the five million mark in using a set of Jacks to beat Gruneberg, but it was at the unofficial final table where he did his biggest damage.
Only 11 hands into the unofficial final table with nine players remaining, Jattin and Racener entered into a raising war that eventually saw Jattin all in and Racener nearly to that point. From the betting pattern, it was easy to discern the hands; When the cards were turned up, Jattin’s pocket Aces were in great shape over Racener’s pocket Kings and, once the Queen-high board ran out, Jattin rocketed over the nine million chip mark while Racener was left on fumes.
Jattin kept moving forward as the evening hours rolled along, moving over 11 million in chips when Jattin took a pot off of Lam. It would be Jattin who called the end of the night’s efforts when, in a battle with Aleksei Vandyshev, Jattin caught an eight on the river of a J-10-7-3-8 board to quash Vandyshev’s Big Chick. By eliminating Vandyshev in seventh place, Jattin burst through the 15 million chip mark to hold a dominant lead heading to this afternoon’s play.
1. Farid Jattin, 15.735 million
2. Zachary Gruneberg, 5.39 million
3. Taha Maruf, 4.405 million
4. Chris Limo, 3.46 million
5. Simon Lam, 3.23 million
6. Jesse Sylvia, 3.035 million
It does look like it is Jattin’s championship to lose as he has more chips than the other five table members combined. If there is a challenger it would be Gruneberg, who has $840,645 in career tournament earnings and 174 online tournament cashes that total almost $2 million (under the screenname ‘HustlerGrune’). Outside of Gruneberg, Limo and Lam have no documented tournament cashes and Maruf has about $360,000 in tournament cashes since 2008.
The final table will not only be taped for broadcast of the Season XV schedule of the WPT, it will also be streamed online. The final table will be streamed on WPT.com and on Twitch.tv beginning at 4:30PM (a 30-minute delay) and feature an all-star cast of commentators. Kane Kalas, Jamie Kerstetter, Michael Gagliano and Nick Binger will all take a seat in the commentator’s chair for the streaming broadcast, which should be an entertaining show for any type of poker fan.