Sitting with the sixth largest chip stack entering Day 5 of the World Poker Tour (WPT) Championship on Thursday is none other than the winner of the 2008 World Series of Poker (WSOP) $50,000 HORSE Championship, Scotty Nguyen.
His stack would have been even larger had he not come out on the losing end of a race on one of the last hands of the night holding pocket eights against Andy Miller’s A-Q. The flop came ace-high, sending Miller into the lead in the hand for good and dropping Nguyen to two million chips. He’ll come armed to Thursday’s play with a stack size of 1.8 million. The entire field trails the 4.3 million chips of Eugene Katchalov.
Nguyen was the talk of the town during the day, eliminating crowd favorite Phil Ivey. The Full Tilt Poker pro pushed over the top of a re-raise by Nguyen, who called with A-9. However, he was up against Ivey’s A-K. The reigning HORSE champion told WPT Live Updates Hostess Amanda Leatherman, “He seemed like he was weak, so I tried to make a move on him. He happened to have A-K and I had A-9, but I flopped a nine.” Ivey finished in 34th place and took home $40,855 for his efforts; he was among the chip leaders entering the day.
Katchalov took down the 2007 running of the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic, which was also held at the Bellagio, for $2.5 million. That final table included Devilfish Poker namesake David Ulliott and 2007 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure winner Ryan Daut. Katchalov finished sixth in the $10,000 buy-in World Championship of Omaha High-Low Split during the 2008 WSOP for $110,000 in a tournament ultimately won by David Benyamine.
Two players fell by the wayside when there were 52 entrants remaining, abruptly bursting the money bubble. In one hand, Ron Levi found himself all-in holding K-J offsuit against Steven Fung’s pocket eights. The board ran out 5-5-2-7-3 and the pocket eights held. That left 51 players remaining. At the same time, John Martin was eliminated and the final 50 runners at the Bellagio made the money. Traditionally, tables are dealt hand for hand on the money bubble. However, that did not occur on Wednesday.
The top ten in chips entering Day 5 on Thursday are as follows:
1. Eugene Katchalov – 4,294,000
2. Christian Harder – 3,083,000
3. Yevginey “atimos” Timoshenko – 2,613,000
4. Justin Young – 2,553,000
5. Brian Rast – 1,931,000
6. Scotty Nguyen – 1,823,000
7. Andrew Lichtenberger – 1,663,000
8. Freddy Deeb – 1,575,000
9. Ross Boatman – 1,545,000
10. Owen Crowe – 1,500,000
The final elimination of the day occurred when Hyon Kim called an all-in raise from Timoshenko on a board of Q-7-6 with two hearts. Timoshenko, who won last year’s Asian Poker Tour Macau event for a half-million dollars, flipped over 6-7 for bottom two pair. Kim revealed A-9 of hearts for a flush draw. The turn came the eight of diamonds, giving Kim a straight draw, but the river came the nine of clubs, awarding the “W” to Timoshenko and boosting the youngster to the third largest stack overall entering Thursday’s play. All was not lost for Kim, however, who finished in 25th place and earned $49,025 in the $25,000 buy-in tournament, the finale of Season VII of the WPT.
Other notable names that are among the 24 players remaining include:
11. Jeff Madsen – 1,265,000
12. Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier – 1,230,000
18. Eric Liu – 844,000
19. Jennifer Harman – 821,000
20. Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson – 814,000
23. David Grey – 322,000
Besides Ivey, other top pros who saw their chip stacks depleted at the Bellagio on Wednesday included Nenad Medic (27th place for $49,025), Chris Ferguson (28th place for $49,025), Chris Bell (31st place for $40,855), Steve Sung (35th place for $40,855), Liv Boeree (37th place for $40,855), Mark Seif (38th place for $40,855), Boris Becker (40th place for $40,855), David Singer (41st place for $32,685), and David Benynamine (45th place for $32,685).
The final table of the WPT Championship will occur on Saturday. Its lone survivor will pocket $2.1 million.
