The final 12 players in the World Poker Tour’s Festa al Lago tournament have been determined and leading the way is Team PokerStars Pro member Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, who holds 2.04 million chips, barely edging second place Odie Dardon’s stack of 1.96 million. Notably, each day’s chip leader has been ousted from the event the next day, meaning an ominous distinction for Grospellier heading into Day 5 on Saturday.
Day 5 play will occur until the six members of the televised World Poker Tour final table are determined. They will be comprised of half of the members of this group of 12:
1. Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier – 2,039,000
2. Odie Dardon – 1,959,000
3. Will Mietz – 1,840,000
4. Michael DeMichele – 1,717,000
5. Olav Prinz Von Sachsen – 1,631,000
6. Joe Sebok – 1,470,000
7. Nenad Medic – 1,435,000
8. Nam Le – 1,149,000
9. Andrew Robl – 1,087,000
10. Mike Wattel – 886,000
11. Jimmy Tran – 739,000
12. Adam “Roothlus” Levy – 568,000
The pack is paced by Grospellier, who also made a deep run in the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event, finishing 370th and pocketing $28,950. He finished 16th in a $5,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em Six-Max tournament for $31,781. Grospellier won the 2008 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas for $2 million, besting Hafiz Khan heads-up in the European Poker Tour event. Americans Kris Kuykendall and David “The Dragon” Pham were also at the final table of that tournament. ElkY finished second in the EPT Copenhagen to Swedish poker pro Magnus Petersson.
Medic won his first bracelet in the first event of the 2008 WSOP, the $10,000 buy-in World Championship of Pot Limit Hold’em. His victory was worth nearly $800,000. At one point on Friday, he had just five big blinds remaining before doubling up twice to put himself back in the hunt for the title at the Bellagio, the site of the Festa al Lago tournament. He will have a healthy chip stack when play returns and will look for his second WPT title. His first WPT victory came by virtue of winning the World Poker Finals during Season V for $1.7 million. Others at that WPT final table included Kathy Liebert and Mimi Tran, two of the top women in the poker world.
Medic told World Poker Tour Live Updates Hostess Amanda Leatherman after play had concluded for the day all about his comeback: “I lost a big hand to get me low. I raised under the gun with A-K and Nam Le pushed all-in for around 380,000 or so. I knew he had a big hand and he turned over two queens. The flop came with an ace and a queen came on the river. That dropped me down to 100,000. Two hands later, I picked up A-J and doubled up. Then, I picked up A-K and doubled up. I ran it up from there.”
Ten days ago, Ultimate Bet announced the signing of Levy to the online poker room’s Star Players team, joining Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy, James “P0KERPR033” Campbell, actress and model Tiffany Michelle, and Best Damn Poker Show Season I winner Tracy Scala. Levy, who is known as “Roothlus” in the online poker world, logged six cashes during the 2008 WSOP, led by a deep run in the Main Event. He cashed for 48th place in that tournament for $135,100. In August, he won the PokerStars $200 rebuy for over $50,000.
A short day of play is expected on Saturday. We’ll have all of the action for you right here on Poker News Daily.
