The penultimate day of this, the biggest WPT tournament in the tour’s history, kicked off at 3:30pm, with play continuing till the 18 remaining players had been whittled down to six finalists.
Play started at pace, with three eliminations inside 20 minutes and a catastrophic start for Jason Strasser, who began the day in third position. It seemed that the young Strasser simply had his poker radar out of kilter, as he plunged into pot after pot with mediocre hands. First he doubled up Vincent Procopio after he called all-in with K-Q only to find himself drawing to three kings against Procopio’s A-Q.
A few hands later and Strasser was at it again, this time raising under-the-gun with A-5o, and finding himself almost pot committed when Jay Chang moved all-in from the button for $210k. Once again Strasser was up against A-Q, and once again he failed to hit one of his three outs.
The signs were not looking good for Strasser, and despite eliminating Chris Bell when all-in with 5-2o Strasser was out a few minutes later, after making yet another loose play. This time Strasser re-raised all-in for his last $615,000 after Jacob Fernandez had raised from the button. Fernandez called with A-J and was delighted to see Strasser held an unimpressive Q-T. The better hand held up and Strasser was out in ninth.
JC Tran meanwhile was on a bit of a rollercoaster. He rarely dropped below his starting amount but often brought his total up to over $4 million before dropping back down to the $3 million mark.
For Paul Wasicka the day started slowly and stayed that way right up till the final few minutes when he suddenly went on a tremendous rush, jumping from $760k to over $3 million in the space of two hands. Hi rush began when he called all-in from the button after Bill Edler had re-raised all-in with Q-J from the small blind. Wasicka’s A-T held up and a few minutes later he had doubled up again after he got it in with A-K against Vincent Procopio’s Q-Q and made trip kings on the turn.
Ten minutes later JC Tran finished off the wounded Bill Edler, moving all-in over the top of Bill Edler’s all-in bet from the button. Tran hit the nut flush on the flop with his Ah-Kh and Edler was drawing dead with his 4c-3h.
The final table going into tomorrow looks like this:
J.C. Tran $3,470,000
Paul Wasicka $3,390,000
Jacobo Fernandez $3,370,000
Eric Hershler $2,160,000
David Bach $2,070,000
Chau Giang $1,700,000