Just one more day remains in the 2015 World Poker Tour (WPT) Rolling Thunder Main Event, as the original field of 379 players has been cut to just six. Harrison Gimbel is the chip leader going into Wednesday with 3.135 million chips in what should be an extremely competitive final table.
This final table is already looking like one of the “historic” variety, with a good chance to become even more so by day’s end. For the first time in World Poker Tour history (the use of the word “unprecedented” in the WPT.com write-up would imply this), two players – Taylor Paur and Ravee Mathi Sundar – have made back-to-back final tables. Paur won the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star while Sundar came in sixth. Additionally, and we brought this up yesterday, Paur could become the fourth player in history to win back-to-back WPT events. As impressive as that is, it is almost more amazing that if he were to do it, three of the four times the feat would have been accomplished would be in the same World Poker Tour season. With so many back-to-back champs, this season is either really boring or really exciting.
Both Paur and Sundar are well positioned to take the title, sitting in second and third place, respectively.
The chip leader, Gimbel, played well all day, but had one big hand in particular that took him to the top. According to WPT.com, Sam Panzica raised to 32,000 pre-flop, Sakat Batra re-raised to 150,000, and Gimbel shoved for 1.5 million, a total which covered both players. Panzica got out of the way, but Batra called, for around 875,000 with pocket Queens. Gimbel showed A-K and the race was on. The Ten-high flop was clear for Batra, but an Ace on the turn paired Gimbel and gave him the pot, eliminating Batra in eleventh place.
A little luck doesn’t hurt, either. A bit later, Panzica and Gimbel got it all-in pre-flop, Gimbel with A-3 and Panzica with A-Q; both players’ hole cards were of the suited variety. The flop was Q-2-2 and it looked like Panzica had a stranglehold on the hand, set to double-up. In a painful turn of events, though, the turn and river came down 4 and 5, giving Gimbel a wheel straight and a horrifying suckout. Sam Panzica was eliminated in eighth place and Gimbel was up over 3 million chips.
The final table of the WPT Rolling Thunder Main Event is scheduled to begin at noon Pacific time. Those interested in watching the proceedings can do so at twitch.tv/worldpokertour.
2015 World Poker Tour Rolling Thunder Main Event – Final Table Chip Counts
1. Harrison Gimbel – 3,135,000
2. Taylor Paur – 2,293,000
3. Ravee Mathi Sundar – 2,373,000
4. Rex Clinkscales – 1,508,000
5. Jeff Griffiths – 1,318,000
6. Jesse Rockowitz – 727,000
