It’s not every day that an Average Joe stumbles across $48,000. However, the five-figure bankroll boost is officially reality for two UB.com online qualifiers still standing in the 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event after Day 5.
Oman’s Meenakshi Subramanian owns the 98th spot on the leaderboard at 972,000 and represents the lone player from the Middle Eastern country to enter the $10,000 buy-in tournament in the Nevada desert. Subramanian is going to have his work cut out for him today, however, as his table draw on Thursday includes Hasan Habib, online poker whiz Bryn Kenney, and Jeff Banghart. However, he ended play on Wednesday with a stack of 60 big blinds, so he has plenty of room to maneuver through the field of 205 players.
Also representing UB.com in the field of the 2010 WSOP Main Event today is Christopher Bolt, who hails from Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Bolt will look to repeat the performance of Chris Moneymaker, an accountant from Middle Tennessee whose victory over Sammy Farha in the 2003 Main Event ignited the modern poker boom. Bolt sits at 141st on the leaderboard after five days of play with a stack of 661,000. His tablemates today include Tristan “Cre8ive” Wade and Todd “DanDruff” Witteles.
Bolt was active during the day on Wednesday, at one point folding to a 5bet all-in from Dan Lu. With a flop of 9-5-2 spread out in the center of the table, Bolt checked, Lu bet 52,000, Bolt made it 115,000, and Lu bumped the price of poker to 230,000. Bolt 4bet to 490,000 and Lu finally moved all-in for nearly one million. Bolt folded and dropped down to 1.2 million in chips. His stack was shaved in half from there by the time play wrapped up, but he’s still alive in poker’s most prestigious tournament.
UB.com ran a “Show Up, Get Paid” promotion for the Main Event that featured a progressive prize pool based on how many qualifiers turned out to the Rio to play. The four UB.com qualifiers who made the money will each bank an extra $20,300, which should be enough to purchase several trips to the Rio’s Carnival World Buffet. The field will shrink to 27 players on Friday and be cut to nine on Saturday.
With Brandon Cantu falling by the wayside on Thursday, two UB.com sponsored pros remain in the hunt for the $8.9 million top prize and eternal poker glory. Adam “Roothlus” Levy is in 74 place entering Day 6 and will come armed with a stack of 1.15 million. At his table will be fellow UB.com sponsored pro Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin, who has just 292,000 chips to work with. Joining Levy and Baldwin is Russell Rosenblum, who made the final table of the World Poker Tour Championship in 2004.
After unsuccessfully trying to knock out Michael Maitre with 10-8 against pocket deuces, Cantu found the exit. He was all-in with 9-7 of clubs against the A-K of spades of Javier Martinez. The flop came J-7-6 with two spades, giving Cantu middle pair and Martinez a flush draw. The turn was a red four, leaving Martinez rooting for a spade, ace, or king on the river to send the two-time bracelet winner home. The river was – you guessed it – a spade and Cantu’s run in the 2010 WSOP Main Event came to an end. He simply Twittered “Out” upon his departure.
UB.com is one-half of the USA-friendly CEREUS Network.