Like its compatriot in Europe, the World Poker Tour Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic is also working its way to a final table, with an impressive run once again by Antonio Esfandiari dominating the storyline.
Esfandiari came into Friday’s Day Four play with a sizeable chip lead over Freddy Deeb, but 60 others were looking to make their case for becoming a WPT champion. Eddy Sabat, Brian Rast, Noah Schwartz, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Andrew Lichtenberger and John Hennigan were all arranged in the Top Ten when the cards hit the air yesterday as the players looked to take care of some unfinished business.
With only the top 54 getting a sizeable payday for their stay at the Bellagio ($19,516), the first six players eliminated would only get the privilege of coming back for Day Four as their reward in this tournament. A. P. Phahurat, Ken Aldridge and Larry Wright went in rapid fashion as, barely a half hour into the day’s play, there were only 57 survivors left. After Edward Holyoke and Robert Buckenmeyer were dispatched at the one hour mark, the “money bubble” was upon the remaining players.
It was thought that the bubble popped quick after a battle between Ty Reiman and Shawn Buchanan. After a pre-flop raising battle, Reiman and Buchanan saw a monochrome 8♠ 3♠ 2♠ flop, which brought a bet of 45K from Reiman and a call out of Buchanan. Another deuce on the turn ignited the fireworks when, after another Reiman bet, Buchanan moved all in. Reiman made the call, only to see his pocket Kings had been run down on the flop by Buchanan’s A♠ 10♠. When neither another King nor another deuce came on the river, Buchanan won the hand, but the chips had to be counted out.
After the counting was done, Buchanan was found to have entered the hand with the lesser chip stack, so he earned a huge double up. Reiman, on the Top Ten at the start of the day, was left with only 18K in chips, so the money bubble remained intact.
The bubble would pop in a battle between Roland Israelashvili and Joseph Elpayaa, and it would come in a stunning fashion. After Israelashvili moved all in from the cutoff, Elpayaa pushed all in over the top from the small blind. After the big blind’s departure, Elpayaa saw the bad news; his pocket Queens were way behind Israelashvili’s pocket Kings and, after an A-J-4-8 flop and turn, it looked as if there was a double up in store. The river brought lightning for Elpayaa, however, as another Queen found its way to the felt, eliminating Israelashvili as the “bubble boy” and putting everyone in the money.
Within a few hours after the Israelashvili elimination, there were only 41 players remaining in the tournament. Esfandiari had been silent for much of the afternoon, but was still in the lead. The same couldn’t be said for Rheem, who had a much more difficult day.
Rheem’s aggressive style that had helped him build a stack on Day Three turned on him during Friday’s action. He bled chips consistently through the early action and his end came against Scott Clements. After pushing all in with Big Slick, Rheem saw Clements make the call and table a leading pocket pair of sixes. The flop basically ended any discussion, coming down 8-8-6, and once the turn brought a seven, Rheem was out in 40th place.
The players continued to drop at an accelerated pace, putting the plan for Friday’s play into discussion. The thought was to play down to 27 players but, with the departures from the Bellagio coming so quickly, it was decided to play deeper into the night regardless of the number of players. By 6PM, only 32 players remained and, one hour later, the final three nine-handed tables were determined.
It was at this point that Esfandiari seemed to wake up from his afternoon nap and went on a rampage. After dropping down the leaderboard a bit, he eliminated Hennigan in 25th place to crack the million chip mark and ground that stack upwards as the evening winded down. When the cards once again fly on Saturday, Esfandiari will be sitting in a familiar place at the Doyle Brunson event – the chip lead over the 22 remaining players:
1. Antonio Esfandiari, 1.597 million
2. Shawn Buchanan, 1.29 million
3. Thomas Winters, 1.25 million
4. Andrew Lichtenberger, 1.107 million
5. Arthur Morris, 863,000
6. Jeremy Kottler, 851,000
7. Jonathan Aguiar, 732,000
8. Yevgeniy Timoshenko, 716,000
9. Ravi Raghavan, 693,000
10. Noah Schwartz, 656,000
The remainder of the field features a plethora of top talent, with Theo Tran, Clements, Deeb, Greg Mueller, Andrew Robl, Rast and Elpayaa (among others) still in contention.
Esfandiari’s run at the past three WPT Doyle Brunson events is unequalled in WPT history. After winning in 2010, Esfandiari made the final table again last year and came in fourth. If he is able to make the final table again – let alone win – he would become the first player in WPT history to pull off that feat (if he wins, he would become the first ever two-time champion of a singular WPT event).
At noon today, the remaining 22 men will come back to work their way down to the six handed WPT final table, set for action on Sunday. The champion has a very nice present awaiting them in the form of a $1.268 million payday.
