Day Three of the World Poker Tour stop at the Borgata in Atlantic City, NJ, is in the books, with Patrick Eskandar atop the ladder as the chip leader with 27 players remaining in the event.
Play began yesterday with 174 players remaining from the monstrous 1,181 entrants that made up one of the largest fields in WPT history (the unique re-re-reentry format, where players could buy back in on the same day after busting AND re-enter the tournament on its Day 1B, helped to contribute to that) and the players got to business in rapid fashion. Within the first hour of play, Matt Glantz and Barry Greenstein would find their way to the rail, with Darren Elias and Josh Brikis following them soon afterwards.
As the action reached mid-afternoon, the money bubble (the tournament paid 110 places) loomed. Making their moves on the field, Allen Cunningham would put a cooler on Jean Gaspard when his pocket Kings held up over Gaspard’s pocket Queens to double up. Also making a move up the leaderboard was former WPT champion Steve Brecher, who also would get a double up to join Cunningham in the pursuit of the chip lead.
The man who was looking to defend his championship in this event was one of those who would come up just short of the money. Bobby Oboodi held a short stack and, once he looked down at pocket nines, thought he saw his shot at doubling up. Pushing all in from under the gun, Oboodi saw the small blind come along and unveil a crushing pair of Aces pre-flop. Once the board ran out with neither of Oboodi’s two outs, he was gone from the tournament as its 112th place finisher; soon afterwards, the bubble burst and the rest of the field was in the money.
After a quick break to celebrate the popping of the money bubble, the players went back to the task at hand of determining the champion of this event. At the time, Barry Hutter led the field, but he was closely pursued by Michael Hickman. Both men were the only ones above the million chip mark at this point, but they would be joined quickly by other contenders for the crown.
With play for the day scheduled to get down to three tables (27 players) there was a long evening ahead for those that remained on the felt. After the dinner break, 68 players were left in contention when the chip lead moved to Eskandar for what would be the remainder of the night.
With another player’s chips in the center in front of him, Brian Lemke made his stand with pocket eights only to see Eskandar, who covered them both in chips, make the call. Eskandar held the rockets and Lemke could only turn up pocket eights to go to battle. The drama was killed on the flop, coming with an Ace to give Eskandar a set and leave his opponents drawing extremely thin. Running fours completed the double knockout for Eskandar, whose full house pushed his chip stack over the two million mark and allowed him to cruise for much of the remainder of the night.
As Eskandar was sitting in fine shape, other notable names dropped from the proceedings. Along with Lemke, Dwyte Pilgrim, Tony Dunst, Stephen Reynolds and Cunningham would all depart the Borgata before play ended at almost 2AM this morning with the determination of the final 27 survivors:
1. Patrick Eskandar – 2,972,000
2. Matthew Burnitz – 2,500,000
3. Steve Brecher – 2,463,000
4. David Diaz – 1,960,000
5. Jeremy Brown – 1,860,000
6. Jeff Saunders – 1,784,000
7. Farhan Madhani – 1,765,000
8. Vinny Pahuja – 1,670,000
9. Jeff Williams – 1,487,000
10. Lee Childs – 1,469,000
11. Scott Schwalich – 1,434,000
12. Tyler Patterson – 1,428,000
13. Kyle Bowker – 1,351,000
14. Matt Brady – 1,349,000
15. Barry Hutter – 1,188,000
16. Ofir Mor – 1,075,000
17. Helen Ellis – 970,000
18. David Heck – 969,000
19. Ben Hamnett – 916,000
20. Vinny Napolitano – 880,000
21. Jamie Kerstetter – 722,000
22. Michael Glick – 635,000
23. Todd Terry – 615,000
24. Michael Hickman – 573,000
25. Maurice Paradis – 537,000
26. Jean Max Gaspard – 524,000
27. Philip Consolo – 304,000
There are plenty of challenges that will face Eskandar if he is able to reach tomorrow’s six handed WPT final table. Brecher was a force throughout the day on Wednesday and the veteran poker pro, who won the 2009 WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star, has shown the ability to close before. Other threats loom in the forms of Pahuja, Childs, Patterson and Bowker, and two ladies – Helen Ellis and “Grindette” Jamie Kerstetter – still have strong stacks to make a charge up the leaderboard.
Play will commence on Thursday at noon at the Borgata with another long day potentially facing the players. The goal is to reach the final six in the tournament, with that final table taking place tomorrow beginning at 4PM. The eventual champion of the Borgata Poker Open will walk off with what is the biggest payday yet on the WPT’s Season XI schedule, $818,847.
