The World Poker Tour’s Doyle Brunson World Poker Classic chugged along at the Bellagio in Las Vegas Thursday, eliminating almost two thirds of the remaining field during its Day Three action.
Starting the day, 149 players came back to the felt from the original 413 players and, in contrast to Wednesday’s play, they all knew what was at stake. The $10,000 buy in event built a prize pool of over $4 million and, per the Bellagio’s standards, 100 players would take home at least $11,942 for their efforts. The big prize, of course, would be for winning the tenth annual running of this tournament (the original event during the first season of the WPT), valued at $821,612, a seat at the WPT Championships next year and the player’s name etched for eternity into the Champions’ Cup.
With 49 players not receiving anything for their two days of labor, the short stacks attempted to get back in the game or go home early. Several notable names dropped from the action within the first hour, including Jason Mercier, Todd Terry, Steve Zolotow, Phil Hellmuth and Dan Heimiller were all casualties of the first hour of action. With that said, there were several pros that pushed their way up the leaderboard in the early action.
Vanessa Selbst, who has been lurking around the top of the action since the start of the tournament, missed a chance to eliminate the defending champion of this event, Antonio Esfandiari, during this early play. After a limp from an opponent, Selbst would push out a raise to 6000, which drew Esfandiari’s three bet of 23K. After the original limper popped his remaining chips (around 30K) into the pot, Selbst went into the tank before announcing a 58K bet. This was enough to get Esfandiari out of the way and the cards were turned up.
Selbst, with her pocket Aces, had the cooler to her unnamed opponent’s pocket Kings and, once the board came six high, pushed Selbst up to 340K. She did miss out on getting some of Esfandiari’s roughly 200K in chips, however, because of the all in by their opponent and her protection raise of her Aces. Esfandiari, for his part, would only state he had A-K or pocket Queens and continued play.
Esfandiari would use this escape to drive himself up the leaderboard as play continued to the bubble. Once again his nemesis would be Selbst and this time they were joined by Darren Elias in a three way hand. After Elias moved all in, Selbst made the call, only to see Esfandiari move his stack into the center. Selbst made the call and the threesome tabled their cards: A-K for Selbst, pocket nines for Esfandiari and pocket threes for Elias. The 7-4-2-Q-10 board missed both Selbst and Elias and pushed Esfandiari near the top of the leaderboard.
Once John Krpan eliminated Brent Sheirbon on the bubble, the remaining 100 players could celebrate their success. Those that scraped their way in also began to drop by the wayside. Players such as Tyler Patterson, Will Failla, David Baker, Ted Lawson, Scott Montgomery and Carlos Mortensen all took home the minimum cash ($11,942). Freddy Deeb, Day Two chip leader Grant Lang, Joshua Pollock, Eric Baldwin and Eric Buchman all took down a $12,937 payday while the field continued to whittle down.
Esfandiari finally found a challenger atop the leaderboard when Kyle Julius, Jason DeWitt and Alexander Debus locked up in a battle. After Debus three bet DeWitt, Julius decided to put out the four bet and, after a fold from DeWitt, Debus moved all in. Julius made the call, tabling pocket Queens against Debus’ Big Slick, and the race was on. The 5-3-2 flop opened some more outs for Debus, but blanks on the turn and river crowned Julius the winner, eliminating Debus and moving Julius to the top of the leaderboard.
When the cards hit the air at noon (Las Vegas time) with 49 players remaining, the leaderboard lines up as such:
1. Kyle Julius, 1.457 million
2. Soi Nguyen, 1.38 million
3. Antonio Esfandiari, 805,000
4. Larry Wells, 704,000
5. Scott Clements, 563,500
6. Madison Bergeron, 554,000
7. Andrew Lichtenberger, 530,500
8. Matt Glantz, 505,000
9. Jeffrey Frerichs, 439,500
10. Jason DeWitt, 415,000
Esfandiari is looking to make history, as no player has ever defended their championship on the WPT. Also looking to add to their legacies by winning another WPT championship are Scott Clements, David Williams, Dwyte Pilgrim, Jonathan Little and Matt Giannetti. Selbst is currently sitting in eleventh place and, along with Dee Dozier, carry the banner for a potential first time female WPT champion.
Play on Friday will be for five levels, while Saturday’s action will look to determine the six handed television table (which could be a long day!). The final table will play out on Sunday, when the final major worldwide tournament of 2011 will crown a champion.