Thursday’s action in the ongoing World Poker Tour (WPT) Championship from the Bellagio in Las Vegas saw the field trimmed from 18 to 10. Today, a six-handed final table will be determined.
The story of the day was the blowup of Faraz “The-Toilet” Jaka, who entered play as a commanding chip leader. He soon tangled with seven-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Billy Baxter. On a board of 4-2-2-9-8 with four spades, Baxter led out for 440,000 and Jaka called, creating a 1.7 million-chip pot. When the cards were turned up, Baxter showed A-Q, including the ace of spades, for the nut flush, and Jaka tossed his hand into the muck.
Baxter then trumped Jaka twice more, once with trip aces and once with another nut flush, to send Jaka’s chip stack spiraling to 90 big blinds. In his final hand, Jaka called all-in with pocket aces for top set on a board reading A-10-9-J-7. However, Bodog pro David Williams held K-Q for Broadway, eliminating the formidable Jaka from the WPT Championship in 14th place for $51,000.
Williams told WPT officials following play on Thursday, “Faraz came in playing every hand like he usually does and Billy Baxter was giving him fits… It sucks that he finally had such a big hand after playing every hand, but he crushed Heather’s aces yesterday and his aces were crushed today, so it kind of evens out.” On Wednesday, Jaka sent Heather Sue Mercer to the rails after cracking pocket aces with 9-3. Jaka flopped two pair in that hand and never looked back.
The final elimination on Thursday went to Olivier Busquet, who was ousted in 11th place for $56,000. Busquet was all-in pre-flop with A-Q, but ran into online poker legend Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy’s wired pair of queens. The best hand held to the river and Busquet was sent into the Las Vegas night. Busquet won the WPT Borgata Poker Open last September, scooping a top prize of $925,000.
Also late in the day, UB.com pro Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin doubled up at the expense of 11-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth. Baldwin flopped a flush with 9-8 of spades, while Hellmuth flopped Broadway. The money went in on the turn and Hellmuth was drawing dead. Baldwin bagged 2.13 million in chips when all was said and done, the sixth largest stack in the marquee WPT event. Hellmuth, meanwhile, is the WPT Championship’s short stack entering Day 6 at 839,000.
The last woman standing in the event, J.J. Liu, was bumped in 13th place for $51,000. In her final hand, Liu’s pocket queens could not withstand the pocket sevens of high-stakes cash game pro David Benyamine. The flop came 8-6-5, giving Benyamine a straight draw, which hit when a nine came on the turn. Liu needed a seven on the river to chop the pot, but a king fell and she was eliminated. Benyamine holds the third largest stack entering Day 6 at 2.56 million.
John O’Shea paces the impressive lineup that remains and holds a stack of 3.17 million. When play wrapped up on Thursday, the action was in Level 22, where blinds were 15,000-30,000 with an ante of 4,000. Here’s a look at the ten players remaining in the hunt for the $1.5 million top prize:
1. John O’Shea – 3,174,000
2. Scotty Nguyen – 2,637,000
3. David Benyamine – 2,561,000
4. David Williams – 2,459,000
5. Billy Baxter – 2,429,000
6. Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin – 2,130,000
7. Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy – 1,269,000
8. Shawn Buchanan – 1,087,000
9. Nikolay Evdakov – 922,000
10. Phil Hellmuth – 839,000
All players are seated at one table. Benyamine, Williams, Baxter, Baldwin, and Josephy are all bracelet winners, while Hellmuth and Nguyen have won the WSOP Main Event. As it stands, the WPT’s all-time money leader, Carlos Mortensen, is the only player to have won the WPT Championship and WSOP Main Event, capturing titles in 2007 and 2001, respectively.
Play resumes on Friday at Noon PT from the Bellagio in Sin City. Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest WPT results.
