When you’re a two-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champion and 10-time bracelet winner, you have the luxury of playing it cool and waiting for players to make unnecessary bluff attempts against you. Johnny Chan has found that especially true at the 2010 WSOP Main Event.
With 205 players remaining going into Day 6, Chan is among the top 10 chip stacks, a perch he’s been sitting on throughout most of the tournament. Chan ended the day with 2,559,000, mainly thanks to a pot he won towards the end of the night against Garrett Adelstein. With the blinds at 6,000/12,000, Adelstein raised to 36,000 in the cutoff and Chan re-raised to 101,000 on the button. Action folded back to Adelstein, who decided to move all-in for around 970,000. Chan quickly called, turning up Kc-Kd, while Adelstein revealed just Qc-Jh. After the board ran out 8s-3s-4s-6s-Qc, Adelstein was on his way to the cage while Chan was stacking a pile of nearly 2.7 million chips.
Chan will be playing catch-up to 21-year-old Evan Lamprea, who bagged up 3,564,000 chips to claim the title of chip leader at the end of the night. Lamprea is followed closely by Michael Skender (3,527,000), Joseph “Subiime” Cheong (3,357,000), Duy Le (3,186,000), and Theo Jorgensen (3,088,000). Other notables healthy in chips include Bryn Kenney, Alex Kostritsyn, Josh Brikis, John Racener, and Michael Mizrachi, whose brother Rob is also still alive, but nursing a short stack.
Also in the field is Breeze Zuckerman, who is the only woman left in this year’s Main Event. Zuckerman, a life coach from Moorpark, California, finished Day 5 with 738,000 chips and will now be placed in the same esteemed group as Leo Margets, Tiffany Michelle, and Maria Ho as “last woman standing.”
The most inspiring story of the day was Team PokerStars Pro Gualter Salles, who could become poker’s next version of Jack Strauss. Strauss famously won the 1982 Main Event after being down to a single chip; Salles is well on his way to accomplishing the same feat. Early on Day 5, the Brazilian called a bet of 106,000 on the turn with everyone at the table believing he was all-in. Salles and his opponent flipped over their cards, with Salles’ pair of jacks trailing the other players’ trip eights, and he was unable to improve his hand on the river. After the hand, Salles realized that there was still a yellow 1,000 denomination chip sitting in front of him. And thus, the rush of a lifetime began.
Salles won the next four hands to increase his stack to 225,000, which was more than what he started the day with. He would double up again only minutes later and eventually finished the day with an astounding 939,000 chips. Salles, a former IRL and CART driver, posted the following Tweet at the end of the day: “que dia incrivel,de uma fichinha solitaria pra 939k. vamoo Brasil.” Translation: “What an incredible day, from a lonely little chip to 939K. Go Brazil.”
The day wasn’t as kind to the hundreds of players that made their exits. Among those eliminated on Day 5 were 2009 November Nine Eric Buchman, Shannon Shorr, Karina Jett, Vanessa Selbst, Jason Mercier, Brandon Cantu, Isaac Baron, Hoyt Corkins, Vitaly Lunkin, Brett Richey, and Praz Bansi.
Day 6 will get underway at Noon Pacific Time on Thursday. Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for continuous updates from the 2010 WSOP Main Event.
