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May 17th 2006
WPT Mirage Poker Showdown: 27 become 6
The 2006 Mirage Poker Showdown has reached the final table stage after a relatively short day’s poker ended at 9:23pm last night. 6 players remain to fight it out for the $1,294,755 first prize.
Day three was not a good day for the short stacks, as with blinds starting at $4000-$8000 they felt the pinch right from the off. John Juanda, Alan Brodsky, Eric Mizrachi, Anthony Reategui, Eli Elezera, Brendan Lynch, Darrell Dicken and Shane Schleger were all eliminated within the first hour of play and within two hours we had already lost over half the field.
Early movers were David Williams, Tam Van Nguyen, and David Singer who all tripled their stacks within two hours. Alan Goehring was also making moves, but his stack was up and down as he seemed to be involved in almost every pot.
After three hours there were just ten players left, but players and fans alike were none too happy that the tournament continued initially with two five-handed tables. This went on for over an hour before officials finally decided two merge the tables into one ten-handed table.
It was a full hour before the next elimination; Champie Douglas had no way out when he found pocket queens and was re-raised all-in by Tam Van Nguyen. Nguyen flipped over pocket rockets and Douglas was out in tenth. That seemed to be the catalyst for a flurry of action, most of which seemed to involve Alan Goehring or David Williams, and sometimes both.
But neither player was involved when the next elimination occurred. Tam Van Nguyen had been one of the chip leaders since the first hour of play when he picked up pocket nines and raised. But Rob Mizrachi, buoyed by the vocal support of his family looked down at A-K and raised all-in before Nguyen had even stated the amount of his raise. Nguyen called ensuring the winner of the pot would take the chip lead. He led up to the very last card, when Mizrachi spiked a king to send Nguyen home in ninth. The $59,180 prize will have been scant consolation.
Next out was Alan Goehring, whose aggressive play had won and lost him countless pots over the course of the tournament. He had just been crippled by David Singer when he found pocket sevens and moved all-in. Unfortunately for him Steve Frederick had located a pair of kings in his pocket, and that was the end of his tournament.
With just one more elimination needed before the final table was set and the players could break for the night the players were visibly fidgety, but it didn’t take long before we were down to six.
In perhaps the most exciting hand of the day Stan Weiss, second in chips, limped in under the gun, with Demetriou calling from the button, Steve Frederick limping from the small blind and David Singer checking his option. With the flop coming Tc-4c-3d Fredicirck checks, Singer bets $70,000 and Stan Weiss raises to $210,000. Everyone else folds before Singer pushes all-in. Weiss then immediately calls and flips over pocket aces. But Singer has made a huge hand with rags: Ts-4d. It looks as though Weiss has been typically punished for a dangerous slow play with aces but fate conspires to save him dealing a cruel blow to Singer. The turn and river are both clubs, giving Weiss a backdoor flush and sending Singer home on the final table bubble. It was a gut wrenching blow that the $92,482 prize money will do little to soften.
Either way, that left six players to reconvene tomorrow at 4pm for the start of the televised WPT final table.
Chip Counts
Stan Weiss - $2,437,000
Robert Mizrachi - $2,019,000
Devin Porter - $964,000
David Williams - $921,000
Harry Demetriou - $822,000
Steve Frederick - $545,000
Submitted: 17/05/2006 10:41:30
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