Faraz “The-Toilet” Jaka is in the hunt for his third World Poker Tour (WPT) final table of the season. He holds a commanding lead over the competition entering Day 5 of the WPT Championship, emanating from the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
Jaka holds 3.12 million chips and is vastly out in front of Full Tilt Poker pro David Benyamine‘s second place stack of 2.35 million. Jaka finished second in the Bellagio Cup last July for $774,000 and took third in the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic in December for another $571,000. Now, he’s returned to the famed Las Vegas Strip casino, where his first WPT victory could be worth $1.5 million.
On his wild ride through Day 4 on Wednesday, Jaka told the WPT Live Updates team, “It was a pretty crazy day.” He recounted a key hand against Heather Sue Mercer: “She opened, I 3bet, she 4bet, and she had 4bet so many times in the last few days. It was on the bubble and I thought there was a good chance she was going to lay it down. I shoved, she snap-called with aces, and I got there.” Mercer was all-in with pocket rockets against Jaka’s 9-3. The flop came 9-8-3, giving Jaka two pair, and no help came for Mercer on the turn or river.
Benyamine eliminated Maroun Jazzar in 19th place, bursting the money bubble and ending play on Wednesday. Jazzar was all-in with A-K of spades pre-flop and Benyamine showed 7-6 of clubs. In a similar fate to the hand between Jaka and Mercer, the player with the worse hand flopped two pair; Jazzar was drawing dead by the turn. The 18 survivors are guaranteed a payout of $47,000 and each member of the six-handed WPT Championship final table will bank at least $199,000.
Benyamine also sent Todd Terry to the rails with pocket queens against Terry’s A-10. The board ran out K-5-4-8-2 and Terry was sent packing in 20th place just before the money bubble burst. The hand pushed Benyamine’s stack to 1.35 million and, amazingly, he wrapped up play only a few hands later with one million more. He hasn’t made a WPT final table in two years, while Terry was in search of his third top 10 finish of the WPT season.
Defending WPT Championship winner Yevgeniy “Jovial Gent” Timoshenko was also ousted on Wednesday. His deep run ended after committing his chips pre-flop with Q-10 and running into the pocket kings of Josh Arieh. Timoshenko found some help on the flop when a 10 hit, but the board bricked out. The hand propelled Arieh to 630,000 in chips, but he finished the day with just 303,000, the third shortest stack in the room.
Wednesday’s action began with 35 players. Others who fell by the wayside included Kyle “kwob20” Bowker, James Calderaro, David “Devilfish” Ulliott, Carlos Mortensen, Brian Lemke, and Randal Flowers. Who is left in the WPT Championship, you ask? Here are the 18 players who will return to the felts today at Noon PT:
1. Faraz “The-Toilet” Jaka – 3,117,000
2. David Benyamine – 2,350,000
3. David Williams – 2,072,000
4. Billy Baxter – 1,630,000
5. Nikolay Evdakov – 1,426,000
6. Phil Hellmuth – 1,377,000
7. Shawn Buchanan – 1,224,000
8. Olivier Busquet – 1,088,000
9. Scotty Nguyen – 941,000
10. Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin – 880,000
11. J.J. Liu – 674,000
12. Robert Cooper – 662,000
13. John O’Shea – 495,000
14. Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy – 458,000
15. Jason Lester – 421,000
16. Josh Arieh – 303,000
17. Matt “All In At 420” Stout – 274,000
18. Tony Cousineau – 60,000
Benyamine, Williams, Baxter, Baldwin, Josephy, Lester, and Arieh are all bracelet winners. Hellmuth and Nguyen have won World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event titles, while Stout won a Circuit gold ring in 2008. Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest from the WPT Championship.
