Several major names in the world of poker have advanced to Day 6 of the Main Event. One of them, however, won’t be able to sit at his table when play commences at noon PT on Sunday.
Phil Hellmuth was handed a one-round penalty on the final hand of Day 5 and will be forced to sit out the first nine hands on Day 6. Hellmuth violated a rule for berating a player, something he’s been notorious for ever since he became an icon in the game. He was first given a warning for his actions but continued to harass Cristian Dragomir for calling a Hellmuth re-raise preflop with 10-4 suited and then flopping top pair. After calling Dragomir an “idiot,” tournament director Steve Frezer promptly gave Hellmuth a penalty. When Hellmuth arrives on Day 6 he will have something close to 760,000 chips, which places him near the bottom of the 79 players remaining.
Another top player going out with a bang on Day 5 was Mark Vos, who began the day near the top of the leaderboard only to bust out on the final hand. Vos five-bet a player all in for his 1.5 million chips but was quickly called by pocket aces, which had his ace-king conquered. The board didn’t help Vos and those still packed into the Amazon Room were left in shock as one of the top players in the world had been eliminated.
Other pros still fighting for the top prize of $9.1 million include David Rheem, Brandon Cantu, Mike Matusow, Kido Pham and Victor Ramdin. Phi Nguyen and Thomas “Thunder” Keller join Hellmuth, Matusow and Cantu as the only bracelet winners still alive. Bracelet winners joining Vos on the rail during Day 5 were Hoyt Corkins, Jon Friedberg, Allen Cunningham and Jeff Madsen.
The chip leader heading into Day 6 is Mark Ketteringham with 5,800,000. In his footsteps are Andrew Brokos (4.08M), Nikolay Losev (4.05M), Albert Kim (3.73M) and one of the great stories of this year’s Main Event, Tiffany Michelle (3.44M). Michelle has played a couple events during this World Series but spent most of the two month stretch doing interviews and reporting for pokernews.com, the official live updates website of the event. Michelle has been able to outgun professionals such Allen Cunningham and Kido Pham and even knocked out last year’s sixth-place finisher Hevad Khan in Day 4. She played all of Day 5 at the secondary ESPN featured table (with Cunningham and Pham) and should get plenty of attention in Day 6. She’ll be seated with Mike Matusow when play begins.
One other female is still hanging on. Lisa Parsons will enter the day in 71st place with 581,000 chips at a table with Brokos and online poker stars Peter Neff and Owen Crowe.
Excitement should build even more as play progresses on Sunday as they will play down to the final 27 in anticipation of this year’s Main Event Final Table, which will be played in November. With so many big names and great stories still in the field, it should make for a fantastic finish to the Main Event.
