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April 24th 2006
WPT Championship reaches final table stage
With one day to go in the WPT Championship just six players remain out of the 605 who started the $25,000 buy-in tournament five days ago.
So far the event has been one of the most exciting WPT events in the tour’s history, with a host of big-name players making their mark in this, the biggest WPT event of the year.
Over the weekend the dropouts were fast and furious, with the likes of Phil Hellmuth, David Williams, Doyle Brunson, Evelyn Ng and Johnny Chan falling foul of the do or die stage of the event.
19 players started the penultimate day of the championship, sharing $30,000,000 of chips between them. They would keep playing until just six remained, to play in front of the television cameras on today’s final table.
One player who will be particularly disappointed not to have made it there is Patrik Antonius. The Finnish poker star had been playing terrific poker throughout the event before suffering a few blows to his chip stack towards the end of Saturday’s play. Not one to be held down easily he battled back on Sunday, only to be eliminated by a terrible beat from Vanessa Rousso.
Rousso called Antonius’s $170,000 preflop raise with T-9 and went all-in when he bet $300K on a ten high flop. Antonius called immediately, flipping over two red aces, but Rousso caught a miracle ten on the turn, and Antonius’s WPT Championship dream was over – he finished 17th. Rousso, despite some loose calls, made it to the final seven, before being eliminated on the TV bubble, ironically to a bad beat herself: her AsKs was beaten by James Van Alstyne’s AdJd when the Js spiked on the turn.
Despite how well the world’s best-known poker players performed in this Championship, only one player on the final table is a household name, and he also happens to be the shortstack.
Men “The Master” Nguyen, last years Player of the Year winner, brings just $1,490,000 to the final table, in comparison to chip leader Van Alstyne’s $8,070,000. He will need a little help from the cards if he is to win his first WPT event, but Men is indeed a master of the shortstack, so write him off at your peril.
Play begins a 4pm PST (around midnight) today.
Here are the final table chip counts:
James Van Alstyne - $8,070,000
Joe Bartholdi - $7,135,000
Claus Nielsen - $5,875,000
David Matthew - $5,765,000
Roland De Wolfe - $1,860,000
Men “The Master” Nguyen - $1,490,000
Submitted: 24/04/2006 10:42:58
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