Monday marks the play down day in the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) Foxwoods World Poker Finals. Twelve players will assemble at the Connecticut casino this afternoon to play down to a winner, who will walk away with a $548,000 grand prize.
Tom “Kingsofcards” Marchese leads the way with a stack of 1.8 million, nearly double the second place tally belonging to Jeff Forrest. Marchese built his chip lead at the tail end of the day after 6betting all-in before the flop with pocket tens. DoylesRoom pro Hoyt Corkins told Marchese, “I guess this is the tournament, I call” and flipped up A-K for a race.
Marchese flopped a ten, but Corkins picked up a gutshot straight draw to a jack. However, a running 2-6 on the turn and river, respectively, catapulted Marchese to the top of the leaderboard with 150 big blinds. Corkins also survived to see the play down day and is at 335,000.
Marchese took down the trophy at the PokerStars North American Poker Tour (NAPT) stop at the Venetian in Las Vegas in February, where he pocketed over $820,000. Since then, he final tabled both the Pot Limit Hold’em World Championship at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) for $123,000 and the European Poker Tour (EPT) Monte Carlo Grand Final High Roller Event for $350,000. Marchese is fresh off a seventh place finish in the EPT London Main Event for $156,000.
Corkins built much of his stack after taking down a one million chip pot against Marchese moments earlier. On a board reading 9-7-6-8-4 with three hearts, Corkins fired out a bet of 240,000 and Marchese called. The “Alabama Cowboy” tabled pocket tens for a straight and announced, “There’s a new sheriff in town, fellas.” Corkins moved to over 1.3 million in chips, although he would quickly give much of that back to Marchese.
The money bubble burst at Foxwoods when Alex Berger ran pocket tens into Kyle “kwob20” Bowker’s pocket queens. The board came J-8-4-9-9 and Berger was sent home in 26th place on the bubble. The minimum payout was $27,000, which went to Full Tilt Poker pro Gavin Smith, whose A-10 could not hold against Nikolai Yakovenko’s K-Q when the flop came king-high. The $10,000 buy-in poker tournament marked Smith’s second in the money finish of Season 9 of the WPT.
Also exiting on Sunday was Josh Arieh, who went out in particularly ugly fashion. Arieh was all-in with A-K of spades and well ahead of the A-Q of Marchese. The board ran out 10-6-2-10-4 with four clubs; Marchese held the only club in the hand to give him the win with a flush. Marchese, who ran hot throughout Day 4, claimed another victim and Arieh banked $27,000.
Here’s how the field of 12 stacks up entering today’s play:
1. Tom “Kingsofcards” Marchese – 1,832,000
2. Jeff Forrest – 979,000
3. Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi – 788,000
4. Nikolai Yakovenko – 690,000
5. Christopher Bonita – 610,000
6. Besnik Ziba – 500,000
7. Keven “Stamdogg” Stammen – 400,000
8. Hoyt Corkins – 335,000
9. Dave Inselberg – 331,000
10. Jason Mercier – 322,000
11. Mohsin “chicagocards1” Charania – 283,000
12. Ben Klier – 269,000
Those who finished in the money were:
13. Mike Meskin – $39,847
14. Andrew Batkin – $39,847
15. Bryon Springer – $39,847
16. Chris “Big Huni” Hunichen – $33,016
17. Ronnie Bardah – $33,016
18. Ardavan Yazdi – $33,016
19. Bryan Piccioli – $33,016
20. Bob Courtney – $33,016
21. Josh Arieh – $27,779
22. Mike Beasley – $27,779
23. Gerard Kane – $27,779
24. Kyle “kwob20” Bowker – $27,779
25. Gavin Smith – $27,779
When play ended for the night, the blinds were in Level 20, where the price of poker was 6,000-12,000 with an ante of 2,000. Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest WPT headlines.
