WSOP APAC
94 players entered the Crown Casino with hopes of becoming the first WSOP APAC Main Event champion, and 15 are left with that dream heading into Day 4.
Overnight chip Leader Winfred Yu is still in, but with only 354,000 chips, leaving him currently in 12th place.
The chip leader, as the players head out of the casino to head to get some sleep is Russell Thomas. Thomas came 4th in last years WSOP Main Event in Vegas, so is no stranger to the attention attracted by WSOP final tables. He will be looking to turn his stack of 1,677,000 into his first bracelet, A$1,038,825 and the first ever WSOP APAC Main Event Title.
However, Thomas isn’t going to have it all his own way, as there are top quality players trying to deny him his glory. These include Daniel Negreanu, Antonio Esfandiari and Benny Spindler, all of whom have decent sized stacks, and will be looking to bully the less experienced players.
Not all has been smooth sailing for the pros though, as some famous names busted before the bubble. Jonathan Duhamel, Dan Shak, Sam Holden and Barry Greenstein all busted before the money, and Esfandiari had to push his luck on the bubble, and was all in twice before he was guaranteed some money back for his A$10,000 stake and 3 days of effort.
Antonio was actually responsible for bursting the bubble with a hand against UK player Rupert Elder. The two threw bets back and forth until Elder ended up 6-bet shoving, only to be snap called by Antonio. Elder’s queens needed help against Esfandiari’s Kings, and the gods of poker didn’t intervene, to leave Rupert with a mere 24,000 chips, which all went in the middle with KcTs the next hand. Antonio finished off the kill with a pair of pocket 3’s that beat out the flip.
Elder left with as the bubble boy, which is not going to do my fantasy team much good.
The end of day chip counts look like this:
- Russell Thomas – 1,677,000
- Benny Spindler – 1,505,000
- Kahle Burns – 1,469,000
- Daniel Marton – 1,325,000
- George Tsatsis – 1,161,000
- Antonio Esfandiari – 1,050,000
- Daniel Negreanu – 827,000
- Tino Lechich – 654,000
- Raj Ramakrishnan – 644,000
- Mikel Habb – 439,000
- Yasar Gueden – 385,000
- Winfred Yu – 354,000
- Jordan Westmorland – 321,000
- Michael Pedley – 310,000
- Joel Feldman – 187,000
it looks like the battle is far from over, especially with players like Daniel Negreanu and Antonio Esfandiari in top form. Daniel is being characteristically laid back, and not banking on anything, as his tweet from the end of the day shows:
15 players left I ended the day with 827k and excited for tomorrow! Avg is 810k and lot of good players left like @magicantonio etc.
— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) April 13, 2013
We’ll have an update for you tomorrow when the players should be down to a final table, ready to play it out to a finish. Keep an eye on the FTR Twitter and Facebook accounts for updates.