It was another short day at the Palms Casino Resort for the surviving twelve men in the Epic Poker League’s $20,000 “Mix-Max” event, setting up for the crowning of a new champion on Sunday.
With the twelve men already guaranteed a $50,920 payday, all were setting their sights on the top prize of $801,680. They would first have to work their way down to the final five combatants by splitting up into three, four handed tables. After the stunning actions on Friday, Joe Tehan held a substantial lead (and approximately twenty percent of the chips), but Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi and Scott Clements were among those ready to take him down.
Within moments of the start of play on Saturday, Mizrachi would eliminate the first player from the action. After a raise from the short stacked Amnon Filippi, Mizrachi put the pressure on by three betting from the big blind. Filippi saw his opportunity to gain some chips through one of the big stacks and moved all in, which Mizrachi happily called. “The Grinder’s” pocket Queens were ahead of Filippi’s A-Q of spades and, after no Ace appeared on the board, Amnon went to the cash out window to collect his money.
Andrew Lichtenberger was responsible for the next elimination, which started “luckychewy” on an upward trend that would continue throughout the day. He doubled up through Hafiz Khan when his pocket Queens outlasted Khan’s pocket eights, then finished the job by eliminating Khan with those same eights against Khan’s pocket threes. The elimination of Khan would push Lichtenberger’s stack to the 575K mark and, minutes later, he would make a better full house than Amit Makhija to push it over 900K.
Tehan was unable to ride the same wave he had on Friday, doubling up Sorel Mizzi to drop his stack to around 800K, while Lichtenberger continued to rise up the leaderboard. Andrew cracked the one million chip mark by eliminating Makhija in tenth place and Mizrachi also continued to grind, joining Lichtenberger over one million chips. Down to nine players on short tables, the chips continued to fly around the felt as the players looked towards today’s championship round.
Mizzi would be dispatched in ninth place by Clements when his flush draw failed to come home against “BigRiskky” and his flopped pair of ten and turned trips. David Williams would end his tournament in eighth place after he locked into a pre-flop battle with Jason Mercier. Mercier, who was looking for some final Player of the Year points by playing in this event, held pocket Kings against Williams’ A-5 of spades and, after the board failed to give David an Ace, he departed the Palms with $89,680 in his pocket.
After four hours of play, seven men were left to contest for the final day play. Mercier would be dealt a blow to his POY aspirations as, against Chris Klodnicki, he called all in on a Q-7-2-10 flop and turn. Mercier was in great position with his Q-10, but “SloppyKlod” turned up the two remaining tens in his hand for a turned set. Another seven on the river sealed the hand for Klodnicki, eliminating Mercier in seventh place.
Barely a half hour later, the final five players for Sunday’s Championship Day action were determined. Day Two chip leader Noah Schwartz, who couldn’t gain any traction on Saturday, saw a rainbow flop of J-10-4 with Klodnicki. After Chris checked, Noah pushed out a 14K bet, only to have Chris check-raise him to 40K. Noah made the call and the duo went to the turn.
A second ten there would end the action for the day. Klodnicki chose to bet this time, 45,000 in chips, and Schwartz would make the raise to 108K. Chris wasn’t deterred, however, moving all in and getting a call from Noah after some time in the tank. Klodnicki held pocket fours this time for the flopped set and turned boat; all Schwartz could muster was a 10-7 for turned trips and, once the river didn’t bring the case ten, a Jack or a seven, Noah Schwartz was eliminated in sixth place late Saturday afternoon.
Lichtenberger extended his chip lead while this hand was in action. Against Clements, the duo would see an A-8-4-3-J board, with big bets on every street. After the river Jack, Clements checked over to Lichtenberger, who pushed out 335K and Clements made the call. He would muck his hand, however, after Lichtenberger showed A-J for Aces up, catapulting Lichtenberger up to 1.7 million in chips and crippling Clements down to 131K.
With his outstanding performance on Saturday, Lichtenberger will lead these men to the felt on Sunday to determine a champion:
1. Andrew Lichtenberger, 1.742 million
2. Michael Mizrachi, 1.279 million
3. Chris Klodnicki, 1.024 million
4. Joe Tehan, 820,000
5. Scott Clements, 131,000
The tournament’s champion will be determined in a unique manner. The final five will play down to heads up action, at which point those two men will play off in a best two out of three format. The heads up players will start the first two games with the chips they bring in from the tournament action and, if necessary, the third match will start with even chip stacks. It should make for an exciting Sunday of poker action as the Epic Poker League determines their third ever champion.
