It’s getting down to crunch time in the Amazon Room at the Rio All Suites Hotel and Casino as the 2012 World Series of Poker Championship Event has broken the 100 players remaining mark, but the leaderboard is still tightly bunched with no single player really seizing control of the tournament to this point.
At the start of the day, Paul Volpe and his 2.75 million in chips were at the top of the ladder but there were plenty of players within striking distance among the 282 players remaining. The top six players were all over the two million chip mark (with former “November Niner” Eric Buchman among them) and there were several threats lurking down the board. Vanessa Selbst (who seems to have been around the Top Ten throughout the WSOP Championship Event), Erik Cajelais and Day Two chip leader Gaelle Baumann were all players who, with their healthy chip stacks, could inflict some damage on the leaders.
Whereas Friday’s pace was frenetic, the rate of bustouts yesterday slowed to a crawl as players could afford to play a bit with their castles of chips. To point this out, 438 players were eliminated during Friday’s “bubble day”; through the entirety of Saturday’s action, only 185 runners dropped from the race. There was some excitement through yesterday’s action, however, as tensions rose as the deep portion of the tournament was reached.
After the “shuffle up and deal” call from three time WSOP bracelet winner Perry Green – the oldest player left in the field at 76 years old and the runner-up to Stu Ungar in 1981 in this event – the players set about the task of making it to Day Six today. Selbst got off to a good start in eliminating Nicholas Carrillo when her K-10 turned trip tens and rivered quads against the flopped top pair of Aces for Carrillo, but she would almost immediately turn around and give some of those chips to Isaac Baron. This would be indicative of Selbst’s day as her stack would yo-yo for much of Saturday’s play.
Volpe continued to march through the field on Saturday, taking an early pot with a flopped boat to get over the three million mark in chips. He was outdone by Robert Salaburu, though, who used a double knockout of Gjorgji Chuchuk and Tom Tran to push into the mid-three million level just a couple of hours into the day’s play. He would use those chips to continue his assault throughout the evening and would be in great shape by the end of the night for Sunday’s play.
An odd story arose during Saturday’s action that had many in the Amazon Room baffled. Jarrett Nash had a decent stack at the start of the day (around 525K), but he had not appeared by the midpoint of play yesterday. As his chip stack was slowly being whittled down by the blinds and antes, the explanation of why he wasn’t there became clear through WSOP Communications Director Seth Palansky.
According to Palansky, Nash, as a devout member of the Jewish faith, was abiding by his faith’s observance of the Sabbath which began at dawn on Saturday and would last until dusk. After finding out about the situation after Friday’s play, WSOP officials explained what would happen to his stack by sitting out, which Nash was apparently OK with. After leaving his Rewards card for any cashout – although he thought he might have enough chips to come back once the Sabbath ended – he was blinded out in 171st place.
There were two tables of note as the Day Five proceedings moved deeper into the night. Baumann, who made incremental additions to her stack through much of the Day Four action, rocketed into contention by never seeming to be on the losing end of a pot all day. In a particular hand against Andras Koroknai, he and Baumann saw an A-9-8-Q-8 board and, once Baumann showed a 10-8 for trips on the river, Koroknai could only muck to the Frenchwoman as she bounded up to almost four million in chips and would end the day around that point.
On the other side of the equation was Daniel Negreanu, who fought all day with less than adequate ammunition at the ESPN Featured Table to do the job. Although he was able to climb close to the million mark through Saturday’s play, he would eventually be knocked off by actor Kevin Pollak after running K-Q into Pollak’s A-Q. Pollak would not be able to do much with Negreanu’s chips through no error in play on his part; getting his stack to the center against Kirill Rabtsov, both showed pocket Queens but the board ran with four hearts and Rabtsov’s Q♥ played to eliminate the former “Celebrity Poker Showdown” host.
By the time the five levels of play had completed early this morning, Kyle Keranen had moved out to a nice lead over the field. Keranen completely bludgeoned whatever table he was on through the day and, after starting with around 1.1 million at noon on Saturday, would more than sextuple that figure by the end of the night.
1. Kyle Keranen, 6.935 million
2. Robert Salaburu, 6.195 million
3. Taylor Paur, 5.82 million
4. Erik Hellman, 4.715 million
5. Wilfried Haerig, 4.505 million
6. Shahriar Assareh, 4.395 million
7. Charles Coultas, 4.015 million
8. Gaelle Baumann, 3.98 million
9. Fabrizio Gonzalez, 3.935 million
10. Nicco Maag, 3.895 million
There are a few new professional faces among the Top 50, as Amnon Filippi rode a nice run on Saturday to end the day with 3.4 million in chips. Coming along with Filippi into the Top 50 were pros Roland Israelashvili and Yuval Bronshtein, who are in 24th and 25th places, respectively. For what seems like the first time at this year’s WSOP Championship Event, Selbst has fallen out of the Top 50, sitting in 70th place with 1.165 million.
Although he didn’t finish the day at the top, Volpe is still a solid contender for the WSOP bracelet, holding 3.25 million in chips for today’s play. Elisabeth Hille also has kept her name in the fight, sitting with 3.39 million for Day Six. Buchman might have slipped down the list a bit (1.93 million, 39th place) but he can still strike from that distance among the 97 players remaining.
Of course, with the survivors also comes a list of those who didn’t make it through Saturday. Along with Negreanu and Pollak, John Juanda, Andy Lichtenberger, Freddy Deeb, Randy Haddox, John Phan and Sorel Mizzi found their way to the payout window, their WSOP Championship Event run ending short of their goal.
It’s going to be a lengthy day of play on Sunday for the 97 combatants for poker’s greatest championship. With tomorrow’s plan to play down to the “October Nine,” WSOP officials would like to get as close to three remaining tables as possible, meaning that 70 players will have to be shot down. The current plan is for Sunday’s Day Six to play five levels, but the tension will be mounting as the WSOP Championship Event reaches its penultimate point.
