Day 4 was a fairly short one at the 2013 World Poker Tour Barcelona Main Event; it took only about five hours to whittle the field from thirteen players to the final table of six. Leading the charge is Canada’s Chanracy Khun with 2.393 million chips as the final table looms on Wednesday.
The chip stacks are fairly spread out compared to the typical final table. After Khun, it’s a half million chip drop to Benjamin Pollak and then another 260,000 to Tahiri Hassani. It’s a 900,000 gap between Hassani and the fourth place competitor, Bruno Garcia Cortelo. Sergio Fernandez is almost 200,000 behind Cortelo, followed by Antonio Alfaia, who is less than 300,000 behind.
Despite the brevity of the day, it was chock full of interesting, if not odd, hands. Case in point: the ouster of Anaras Alekberovas. Antonio Alfaia limped pre-flop and Alekberovas raised to 100,000, leaving himself just 60,000 behind. Alfaia made the call and they saw the flop of A♦-Q♠-2♦. As expected, Alekberovas moved all-in and Alfaia called. Not as expected, though, was the K♥-8♣ that Alekberovas turned over, well behind the Q♣-K♠ of Alfaia. Alekberovas got no help on the turn or river and was knocked out in 12th place.
Another strange one came a bit later when Mario Sanchez raised pre-flop to 25,000, Tahiri Hassani called from the small blind, and Khun called from the big blind. Sanchez bet 35,000 on the A♥-4♣-3♣ flop and again, both opponents called. Everyone checked on the turn card of T♦ and then, after the J♠ on the river, Hassani led out the betting for 69,000. Khun folded and after counting out some stacks of chips, Sanchez raised to 150,000, about half his stack. Hassani insta-called and the two turned over their cards. But they didn’t. To everybody’s surprise, Sanchez mucked his hand without even seeing Hassani’s holding.
The biggest hand of the day was the one on which Khun took the chip lead. After Alfaia opened the pre-flop betting, Khun raised to 50,000. Sergio Fernandez four-bet to 126,000 from the big blind, Alfaia folded, and the remaining two players ended up getting all their chips in the middle. Fernandez had a dominating hand: K♦-K♣ against Khun’s A♦-K♥. Fernandez was sunk immediately on the flop, as an Ace fell, giving Khun a better pair. Fernandez couldn’t catch back up and saw his chip stack sink to about 800,000 while Khun’s rose to 1.6 million.
WPT Barcelona will wrap up on Wednesday as the final six players gun for the quarter-million dollar first prize. The action can be followed via WPT.com’s live stream.
2013 World Poker Tour Barcelona Main Event – Final Table Chip Counts
1. Chanracy Khun – 2,393,000
2. Benjamin Pollak – 1,899,000
3. Tahiri Hassani – 1,636,000
4. Bruno Garcia Cortelo – 722,000
5. Sergio Fernandez – 548,000
6. Antonio Alfaia – 273,000
