One of the final “big” tournaments of 2014 is coming closer to a conclusion. The World Poker Tour Five Diamond World Poker Classic is down to 33 players with Yi Fang at the head of the field and past WPT champions Jared Jaffee and Keven Stammen in pursuit.
78 players came back on Thursday for the Day 4 festivities with Jaffee in the lead, but a good chunk of them would go away unhappy with their performance. With only 54 of the players cutting up the $5,684,200 prize pool, almost a quarter of those remaining players (24) would leave the Bellagio with nothing to show for their efforts. Some of those who would take that long walk were Antonio Esfandiari, Patrick Eskandar, Chau Giang, Randal Flowers and Nick Schulman as the players prepared for the money bubble.
As that bubble approached, one of the true success stories of tournament poker in 2014 took command of the field. Dan Heimiller, who has cashed an astounding 37 times this year (including winning the World Series of Poker’s Seniors’ Event for a $627,462 payday), became the first player to eclipse the million chip mark at the Five Diamond as he took over the lead. Jaffee attempted to keep pace but, with his measly 915K in chips, was losing ground to Heimiller.
The money bubble would pop in a rather unusual fashion. After David ‘Doc’ Sands made a raise and Brett Shaffer popped him to 100K, the cry of “all-in and a call” came from one of the other tables. After determining that he would split the 54th place money ($22,747) with the other all-in player if both were eliminated, Sands called the Shaffer bet with very little behind. On the Q-8-4 rainbow flop, the remainder of Sands’ chips hit the center and Sands showed pocket nines. That wasn’t good enough, though, as Shaffer exposed a Q-J, out-flopping Sands and taking the lead. One of Sands’ two outs didn’t come on the turn (a Jack, giving Shaffer two pair) or the river (a five), sending Sands home in 55th place ($0).
With the popping of the money bubble, the cashiers’ cage at the Bellagio began to get a workout. Dan O’Brien (53rd, $22,737), Cornel Cimpan (48th), Darren Elias (47th), Jimmy Tran (46th), Kevin Eyster (42nd, $25,579) and Kathy Liebert (36th, $31,263) all received a little something to stuff their Christmas stocking. After Fazaed Bonyadi and Ralph Thomas (35th and 34th, respectively) ended the evening’s action, the final 33 players feature this Top Ten leaderboard:
1. Yi Fang, 1.311 million
2. Isaac Baron, 1.012 million
3. Ryan Fee, 996,000
4. Garrett Greer, 979,000
5. Jared Jaffee, 967,000
6. Keven Stammen, 932,000
7. Shaun Suller, 925,000
8. Ryan Julius, 886,000
9. Dan Heimiller, 816,000
10. Brandon Adams, 758,000
The remainder of the field has some interesting stories remaining. Rene Angelil, the manager/husband of singer Celine Dion, is bubbling under the Top Ten, while former WPT champions Will Failla, Daniel Negreanu, Mohsin Charania and Anthony Zinno are still alive, albeit with less than average stacks. If Negreanu were to come back and win this tournament, he would become the first player to win the same WPT event twice (Negreanu won this tournament in 2004 during the third season of the WPT).
While the remaining 33 players in this tournament will play down to the final six on Friday, the WPT Alpha8 is also in action. There have been 48 entries to this point (registration is open into action on Friday) and Noah Schwartz is in the lead over such notables as Phil Laak, Jason Koon, Daniel Cates, Scott Seiver and recent Alpha8 London champion Dan Colman. Between the Alpha8 and the WPT Five Diamond championship, the eyes of the poker world will be locked on the Bellagio in Las Vegas as the 2014 tournament poker schedule comes to a close.
