After battling through a 243-player field, Phil Hellmuth has set himself up in decent shape to make a run at Bracelet #14. He will be the headliner – overshadowing 2014 “November Niner” Bruno Politano – when the $2000 Six Handed No Limit Hold’em tournament, Event #7 at the 2014 World Series of Poker Asia/Pacific (WSOP-APAC) plays out its final table later today (Saturday in Australia).
31 players came to the tables of the Crown Casino yesterday, looking to whittle the field to the final six contenders. Alexander Antonios was leading the field at that time with 138,200 in chips, but Hellmuth lurked in the Top Five, tied with Politano at 82,500 chips as the day’s action began. Only 27 players would take home any money from the tournament, making the early play especially tense.
Antonios would take care of the first elimination of the day, knocking off a short-stacked Alan Schubert, while the eliminations of Scott Reid and Henry Wang brought the players to the money bubble. That bubble popped when Sang Lee, who did everything right in waiting to get his chips in with pocket Kings, was outrun by Phil Ward’s pocket eights on an 8-6-4 flop. When neither King came to Lee’s rescue, he was out in 28th place ($0) and everyone else was in the money.
Following Lee’s departure, the eliminations began to accumulate. Tony Hachem, Dylan Wilkerson, Jesse Sylvia, Peter Longmore (who got his chips in on a nut flush draw against Michael Tran, only to see that Tran had flopped quads) and Mitch Caton hit the cash out cage within an hour of the bubble popping as Tran eked out a lead over Kris Nestorovic with twelve players remaining.
Hellmuth continued his stalking maneuvers as the final two tables began play, not scoring any major moves but slowly working his stack up. Politano, on the other hand, yo-yoed his stack through the play of those tables. As the end of a level approached, though, the action would once again pick up as players tried to make their stand for WSOP gold.
Ami Barer would depart in 11th place at the hands of Yu Kurita and he was quickly followed by Van Marcus (10th), Brendon Rubie (9th) and David Lim (8th). Bringing the final seven men together to set the official final table, it was Hellmuth who would make the final elimination to set up for his run at Bracelet #14.
A four way hand between Antonios, Tran, Nestorovic and Hellmuth (in the big blind) saw an A-9-4 flop, which brought an opening bet of 15K out of Hellmuth. After Antonios and Tran got out of the way, Nesterovic decided to take a stand, pushing his remaining chips to the center of the felt. Facing a call for less than 2:1 odds on the pot, Hellmuth agonized over the decision before making the call, tabling a leading A-9 against Nestorovic’s A-Q. Once an eight hit the turn and a six rolled on the river, Hellmuth had eliminated Nestorovic in seventh place and puts himself in decent shape for his run at another bracelet.
1. Steven Zhou, 315,000
2. Alexander Antonios, 278,000
3. Michael Tran, 274,000
4. Yu Kurita 269,500
5. Phil Hellmuth, 266,500
6. Bruno Politano, 65,000
With his trip to this final table, Hellmuth only adds to a lengthy WSOP record and several career milestones that he holds. With this tournament, Hellmuth now has 108 WSOP cashes (by far a record), his 51st WSOP final table (another record) and is looking for his 14th bracelet (a sizeable lead over Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan and Phil Ivey, who all hold ten). With the Top Five so tightly bunched, it isn’t out of the question to see Hellmuth take down another piece of jewelry for his collection.
Politano also bears watching as he may have to make some moves early to get back into the fray. His style of play, reminiscent of his up-and-down stack coming to the final table, is highly variant and, depending on if he can catch a good run, might put his name in the mix for the title.
Action resumes this afternoon (U. S. time), when one of these six men will take down the latest WSOP bracelet and a $128,784 (Australian) payday.
