With all the focus on the Main Event, people may have forgotten the other event that was still in play:
Event 74 - $1111 The Little One For One Drop A tournament that seems like it started a lifetime ago, and was enlivened by some superb results for Sky Poker players (well done again to one and all), is finally over and the bracelet is in the mitts of Adrian Moreno.
He had already finished 23rd in the Monster Stack and 19th in the Crazy Eights, and finished off the Series in fine style by coming from 11th of 12 at the start of Day 4 to take the bracelet and over $528K.
Norway's Martin Lesjoe was the runner-up and start-of-day chip leader Matt Berkey ended up in third.
The main is down to 28 players, they've just gone on a brief break. I don't know whether they are going to play down to 27 or play the full hour of the next level that was originally proposed. Full report when they decide to stop anyway.
Great updates as usual FCHD now that things are starting to wind down what do I read with my morning coffee. What we're your highlights from the last month
Sorry for the length of the post, but there's a lot to get in!
Event 73 - The Main Event, Day 6 Another long and gruelling day (for some players this will have been the fifth successive 13 hour day) has seen the field reduce to just three tables.
From my earlier post, we lost two British players in quick succession, Paul vas Nunes in 55th for $121K and Artan Dedusha (who has gone for good this time!) in 52nd for $145K
While still at the $145K paypoint we breached the final 50 of the over 7000 player field
50 Cosmin Joldis, last Romanian player 49 Gregory Goldberg 48 Jae Hwang 47 Mike Linster 46 Nick Guagenti
Pay jump to $176K
45 Max Silver. Max had been doing really well at the Featured Table, but it looks like it all went sour quite quickly. A failed bluff on Daniel Turner lost half of his stack, most of the rest went when his AQ didn't improve against Alexandre Reard's AK and his last 10 BB went in with sevens against Scott Blumstein's Jacks, which held.
44 Jesus Blanco, last Spanish player 43 Dario Sammartino, last Italian player 42 Brandon Meyers 41 Ryan Leng 40 Frank Crivello 39 Sean Gibson 38 Jonathan Dwek. Dwek has got himself a whole lot of TV time with his Superman outfit, but his ME came to an end, getting his last 5 million chips in on a rivered straight, but unfortunately for the Man of Steel, he ran into Christian Pham's straight flush. This took Pham into a large chip lead with over 25 million in chips 37 Zu Zhou
Pay jump to $214K 36 Travis Lutes 35 Matt Bond. Richard Gryko took him out after a flip pre-flop and the British player pairing his Ace on the flop 34 Dann Turner 33 Andrew Ostapchenko 32 Chris Wallace
By this stage, fatigue was beginning to set in, reports elsewhere indicate John Hesp and Antoine Saout in particular were playing tired. Ben Lamb, well used to late night sessions in high stakes cash games began to take advantage
31 Joshua Marvin. Marvin's 5-bet shove pre-flop with AJ was insta-called by Valentin Messina who held AK. Three 10s and a couple of low cards on the board meant the AK held and Marvin left the table 30 Justas Vaiciulionis. The last Lithuanian remaining, he was another to fall at the hands of Gryko
Messina, Pham and Lamb were now fairly close at the top of the chip listing, with Marcel Luske (as he had been most of the day) one of the short stacks.
29 Neil Patel. Former chip leader Daniel Ott was a spot behind with his kicker pre-flop (A9 to Patel's A10) but a 9 on the flop changed things and Patel hit the rail.
28-handed play went on for over an hour and a half, and with just one more elimination to go before the players could say they made Day 7, the tension was high. A couple of shoves got through (in successive hands, both against Jonas Mackoff who folded quickly both times), and the first all-in called was when Michael Krasienko shoved with Queens and got called by Robin Hegele. The ladies held up and Krasienko had his double up and was off the immediate danger list. John Hesp got one nice pot on a three-way flop where the other two folded to a 800K bet, then he made another nice profit when he 5-bet shoved pre-flop on Ben Lamb to pick up 3m, and a few minutes later was at it again taking 6m off Daniel Ott when a hand went to showdown with the Brit's two pair being good.
28 Joshua Horton. Jack Whitehall, no sorrry Jack Sinclair and Horton saw a flop with 2 hearts and after a bet and a call, saw a turn card which was another heart. All the money went in, with Sinclair having A3 of hearts and Horton, the player at risk holding J8 of hearts. Horton had an open-ended straight flush draw on the river to save his tournament life, but it was a spade and his tournament, and everyone else's Day 6 was over.
The final hand brought Sinclair up to 3rd spot, and the highest of the 3 British players left in the event. John Hesp is still battling on (I hope he has a clean multi-coloured shirt for Day 7) in 6th and Richard Gryko is 11th.
Christian Pham is the chip leader with Messina, the top of no less than 4 French players still alive in 2nd. Ben Lamb going for his 2nd FT is 4th, Antoine Saout, in the same situation is 15th and Michael Ruane, who of course is going for Back-to-Back FTs is 16th.
Other nationalities involved are Portugal, Germany (2), Russia, Argentina (2), Canada, Netherlands and Czech Republic with the balance of the field being 10 American names.
With the drop to 3 tables, we have arrived at another pay jump and the next nine players to go will all take $263K
Day 7 has begun, and we've got our first casualty already
27. Robin Hegele
The Day 5 chip leader, Hegele, lost out in a huge confrontation with Jack Sinclair. Sinclair raised pre-flop, Hegele 3-bet to 1.8m and then the Brit shoved enought to put Hegele all in (another 5 million or so). Hegele had queens, Sinclair A10 and the ace of clubs on the turn sealed the German's fate
And while I was typing that
26. Michael Skleinicka
The Czech came in with the short stack, and went out to Christian Pham. Both players had an ace, and when another ace came on the flop all the chips went it, and Pham's better kicker was the difference when the river was a blank.
Elsehere, Marcel Luske has doubled up and John Hesp has taken a chunk of Jack Sinclair to move him into the chip lead. Brits 1 & 2 at this stage, with over 30m chips each. The average stack at the FT will be somewhere around the 40m mark. The third Brit, Richard Gryko is still sitting in the middle of the field, on more or less the same stack as he started the day with.
Down to 14 BB, he picked up a pocket pair (sixes) and decided that was enough to shove with, but unfortunately for him, sitting directly on his left, Christian Pham had a pair of nines. No six came and Lohnert was sent to the rail.
24. Jake Bazeley. Hand not reported yet.
Play entered Level 33 (150K/300K with a 50K ante - the ante now the same as the Day 1 starting stack.
Edit - the WSOP are now placing Bazeley 25th and Lohnert 24th, not that it makes a huge amount of difference. Bazeley went out in a classic race, his pocket 10s being looked up by Ben Pollak with AK, and there was an ace on the flop.
The veteran Dutchman has been battling a short stack for seemingly ages and his run of double ups. He held A8 but Ben Pollok's pocket Jacks dispatched the last Dutch player from the Main Event.
Guay 3-bet a raise from Valentin Messina for all his chips (5m) with pocket twos, and holding about 14m and AK, Messina called. The flop and turn 6-7-10-9 gave the Canadian a whole lot of safe cards for the river, but the Ace of diamonds was not one of them and Guay bid farewell to the Main for another year.
Jack Sinclair still holds the big stack, John Hesp having dropped down to third, marginally behind Scott Blumstein.
We still have two players from Hoboken, New Jerset (just across the Hudson from Manhattan) - Michael Ruane & Randy Pisane although both are now shortish stacked, and Blumstein is from only 30 miles away in Morristown.
BT Sport 1 coverage starts in 10 minutes for a couple of hours.
Mackoff falls to Jack Sinclair, A9 against AJ and no dramas on the board.
Still 4 French players left at this point, and in French on French action, Antoine Saout doubles through Messina. 21 French players cashed in all in this years ME.
The jacket does it again. John Hesp has come from behind to eliminate the first of the Hoboken two
20. Randy Pisane
Pisane had pocket queens, bet a 10-9-x flop for 1.7m, Hesp raised with A9 to 3.5m and Pisane went all in for about another million more. Hesp stopped and thought about it for a while but really had no option to call considering the pot odds and he celebrated when an Ace came on the turn. It was a third heart though, and with Pisane having the Queen of hearts, it gave him a 25% chance on the river, but the card was a blank and Hesp knocked out another one to reduce the field to the teens.
The start of day chip leader with over 31 milllion chips has busted
19 Christian Pham
He picked a bad spot to bet into Ben Pollak, because the Frenchman had the aces. Another on the flop, but giving Pham a flush draw, but the final card was of no help and Pham went from 1st place to out of the Main Event in about three hours play.
This of course means a reduction to two tables, a re-draw for seats and a payjump to $340,000. The next ladder will be to 15 players, and a mighty fine ladder it will be, for over $100K
With the increase in stakes, it's no surprise that the pace of eliminations has slowed down.
The first bustout from the final two tables must have happened just after I called it a night, and unfortunately it was one of the three remaining British players
18. Richard Gryko $340K
Gryko hadn't been able to get much going on Day 7, so when Antoine Saout raised to 1m from Under The Gun and it folded around to Gryko who held KQ, he put his last 7m or so. Saout didn't snap call, but call he did and showed pocket tens. There was no help for Gryko on the flop or the turn, and to add insult to inury the river was a third ten.
By contrast, Michael Grisienko had been rather active but his run came to an end in a textbook cooler, his pocket queens coming up against Jack Sinclair's Kings and not improving.
17. Michael Grisienko $340K
As level 34 came to a close, Jack Sinclair had amassed over 66m chips, with Scott Blumstein on almost 50m and Ben Pollak third on 34m. John Hesp continued to be involved in lots of pots and had dropped a few, but still had a very healthy stack, as did Saout.
16. Alexandre Reard $340K.
Reard managed a short stack for most of the Day, and with about 13 BB and the level rise imminent, he must have been loving life when he picked up AQ Under The Gun, and of course all those 13BB went in. What didn't make him happy was that, in the Small Blind, Ben Lamb was sitting with AK. An easy call from the former November Niner and five cards later, the Frenchman was being escorted to the payout cage.
Sinclair continued to chip up, often at the expence of Hemp while on the other table Richard Dubini was beginning to get agressive, opening several pots in a row, winning several without a flop being needed.
As dinner break approached, Sinclair's seemingly unbroken upward trend slipped a little. He lost three hands in quick succession, one to Hesp, and two to Pedro Oliveira. None of them by themselves huge hands but a couple of million here, a couple of million there and his large lead had been whittled down somewhat.
Shortly before the break, the French challenge was down to 2
15 Valentin Messina $450K
With the price of poker getting more expensive, Messina's stack had dribbled down to the point where he only had about 8BB. Lamb raised to 1.1m and after it folded around to Messina in the Big Blind with JQ, he shoved and Lamb duly called with AJ. Lamb dominated Messina. The latter did pick up a gut shot on the flop, but nothing came to help in on the turn or the river and he was eliminated.
On the very next hand on the same table, Scott Stewart 3-bet shoved with pocket Jacks, and was looked up by table chip leader Scott Blumstein who was behind with pocket nines. The flop came three clubs and with Stewart having the jack of clubs, this left Blumstein with only one out. It didn't come and Stewart doubled up.
So at dinner break, Sinclair had 62m and Hesp, Blumstein and Pollak were all in the thirties. Russian Karen Sarkisyan was the short stack, with last year's November Niner Michael Ruane still in the market for a repeat, with his stack being down to 23BB.
After the break, the first significant action involved Ruane, and it saw him come from behind when he was all in pre-flop with Q10 and quickly called by Scott Stewart with AK. A ten on the flop and a queen on the turn gave Ruane two pair but left Stewart with a gut shot to Broadway, but the blank on the river saw Ruane double up.
14. Karen Sarkisyan $450K.
The Russian couldn't hang on any longer and put his last chips in with Q8 suited. The call from Sinclair was for only about 10% of his stack so with pocket twos in the big blind it was an easy call. A Queen on the flop put Sarkisyan in front, but with 2 hearts on the flop and another on the turn it gave the Brit a flush draw, which duly hit and the runner-runner cards knocked out Sarkisyan in 14th.
After hand 163, Bryan Piccoli went to his rail, telling the that his short stack would be in the middle shortly, and true to his word on the very next hand, that' what happened. In they went with the very nice looking KQ of hearts backing them up. Ben Pollak obliged but his J10 was behind and a Queen on the flop and four low cards sealed a double up for Piccoli. On he previous hand, Pollok had taken several million off Sinclair with a straight, so it was you win some, you lose some.
Since then, they played perhaps a dozen hands on each table and he man in the crazy suit (but he was wearing a more sensible shirt today), John Hesp has re-taken the chip lead. Sinclair makes it a Brit 1-2 and Blumstein is 3rd. Daniel Ott has quietly chipped back up to 4th, while at the other end of the scale Stewart is the short stack, Richard Dubini (one of two remaining Argentinian players) is 2nd shortie and despite his recent double-up, Piccoli is far from safe.
Play continues with 13 players, next man out claims $535K. I think we'll be here for a while yet.
After the return from a short break, Scott Stewart shoved once and got no action, and three hands later 3-bet shoved for his last 15BB with A9. He was looked up by Scott Blumstein who had KQ of clubs.
The Ace of clubs on the flop put Stewart further ahead, but it was accompanied by another club giving Blumstein the draw. The turn was a meaningless diamond, but the 4 of clubs on the river gave Blumstein the nuts and sent the bandana-wearing Stewart out of the event.
13. Scott Stewart $535K
This moved Blumstein right amongst the two Brits as the biggest stacks in the room.
The final table this year is going to take place from three days from 5:30pm Thursday Vegas time (1:30am Friday here) and is being played in the Brasilia room where the featured tables are now. There is no Penn & Teller Theater stage this time around.
As often happens, you wait ages for one, then two turn up almost together. Not London Buses, but eliminations from the ME.
12. Richard Dubini $535K
The Argentinian was another victim of the rampant Blumstein. Dubini's pocket queens were in good shape pre-flop but were only 80% favouites against Blumstein's A2, and the 1 in 5 chance hit with an Ace on the flop. There were picture cards on both the last two cards Dubini saw, but one was a King and the other a Jack, neither any help.
Blumstein is now chip leader, with just two more eliminations tonight before the FT is set. Those looking most vulnerable at the moment are Bryan Piccoli (22BB), Ben Lamb (32BB) and Pedro Oliveira (35BB)
Hopefully not treading on FCHD's toes, but I have just read elsewhere that the final 9 has been reached and John Hesp is there (2nd in chips).
This is a guy who owns a caravan business from Bridlington and just plays poker as a recreational hobby. I really hope he wins this now, even if his jacket is as bad as Tikay's purple coach drivers one
So I left it this morning with 11 left, well there was plenty of action still to play itself out.
Piccoli got a much neeed double up through Antoine Saout when his pocket eights were looked up by the Frenchman's A4. Two aces on the flop gave Saout three of a kind, but after a blank on the turn the third eight (well it would do at some point with so many players wearing 888 branding) sealed the double up.
Pedro Oliviera and John Hesp played a hand that didn't look too impactful to start with after a 1.5m raise and a call pre-flop, Hesp flopped a flush and for once, played it slow and it went check-check, but it all happened on the turn when Oliviera found an ace to give him 2 pair. Hesp checked again, Oliviera bet 2m then Hesp check-raised to 5m and the Portuguese came back over the top all-in for about 15m, which Hesp called. The river was yet another club and so it was
11. Pedro Oliveria $675K.
He left Portugal when restrictions on online poker came in and moved to Brazil, but maybe able to return home soon as there is talk of a merged liquidity pool for Portugal, France, Italy & Spain being build under joint regulation soon.
This brought the players all together to one big unofficial Final Table. Hesp (71m), Blumstein (66m) and Sinclair (58m) were the big stacks, with a large gap, with fourth to tenth all clustered between 16 and 30m.
Last year, 10-handed play was more or less over as soon as it started, but it took 20 hands this time. Hesp started as if it was his local £10 rebuy in Hull, moving his stack up another 10m mostly at the expense of Sinclair, and within another 5 hands another 10m after forcing first Ruane and then Ott to lay down pots they'd invested in.
Hand 178 was a huge hand. Hesp raised (why not, it's been working all event), Blumstein called and Sinclair 3-bet at which point Hesp found a fold but Blumstein called. Sinclair bet and Blumstein called both flop and turn by which time the pot was getting rather large. The Brit put in another 13m on the river, which caused Blumstein thought a long time about before finally calling. Sinclair mucked, obviously on a bluff and Blumstein's pocket 10s (which hadn't improved) saw him shoved a mountain of chips and the chip lead, with Sinclair dropping down into the pack.
Every hand was important now, with so many players on similar sizes stacks there were any combination of two guys clashing that could see the end of Day 7 and the FT settled.
Hand 179 Hesp raised, Pollak re-raised to 4m and Hesp called, checked all the way to the river when a 4.5m Pollak bet saw Hesp fold and drop a few million from his monster stack
Hand 180 Sinclair's button raise saw everyone else fold for an easy pick up of a few chips
Hand 181 Blumstein's mid-position raise saw everyone else fold.
Hand 182 Sinclair raised from the Hijack, Lamb shoved shoved for almost 15m from the small blind which was enough to get Sinclair to fold
Hand 183 It was Hesp's turn to raise and induce a chain of folds.
Hand 184 The pivotal hand. Ruane moved all in from mid position with that turned out to be AK. With the stakes as high as they were, it was no surprise that Piccioli went into the tank for a couple of minutes with pocket tens but he eventually called and we were off to the races for 34 million chips. Neither player came close to improving and in a huge swing of chips Piccioli was more or less safe and Ruane was down to 2BB and needing a miracle or some proper barnacle play.
Hand 185 Pollak raised to 2.5m and with Ruane so short, no one wanted to take him on
Hand 186 Ruane found a suited ace and understandably shoved his last 1.9m in. Salas re-shoved and the action folded to Saout in the big blind who open folded A9. Salas had pocket Jacks, so Ruane needed to find an ace or lots of clubs. One club came on the flop but it was not enough and when the turn was a heart, he needed to hit a two-outer on the river to continue his amazing quest to "do a Newhouse" and make 2 consecutive ME FTs. The dealer paused, waited for the signal to continue, burned a card and then turned over the Queen of spades.
10. Michael Ruane $825001. I'm sure that extra $1 will come in handy.
So after all the excitement, we can settle down with the final 9. Not a November Nine, but the final table nonetheless. Two of them have been here before. Antoine Saout finished third in 2009 and Ben Lamb also finished third two years later. Lamb is also one of two bracelet holders (2011 $10K PLO) alongside Bryan Piccioli (a A$1100 event at the 2013 WSOP-APAC)
Lamb and Saout's November Nine winnings make then the top two money winners of the group, with the second Frenchman, Ben Pollak third and Piccioli fourth.
Pollak is the highest placed player in the GPI rankings at 116, with Saout second and Piccioli third (Lamb rarely plays live MTTs these days so he's down at number 16828
That leaves five players. Jack Sinclair is a major presence online but a comparitive rookie live, not ratching his first recorded cash until this April at DTD and other than that only has two small cashes from this years WSOP
Damien Salas has cashed in the ME twice before, 606th in 2013 and 418th last year. His lifetime cashes come to just over $900K which of course he'll more than double with the minimum of a cool million just for making the FT.
Dan Ott (whose brother also played the ME and was on the rail yesterday) had no recorded live cashes anywhere at the start of the WSOP. The brothers teamed up in the $1K tag team event to pick up $990 each, and Dan had a decent run in the Monster Stack where he cashed for $2666. He's in a completely different league now.
Chip leader Scott Baumstein has $312K of live cashes according to the WSOP report, but $1.6m according to Hendon Mob. Whether there's two players that have been combined or someone's got their wires croses, who knows? What is beyond dispute is that he has 2 cashes from this year's WSOP, both in huge field events (Marathon & Millionaire Maker). He cashed the Main in 2015, 2010 & 2009.
Who am I missing, John Hesp of course. His story has become well known now, of course Tikay will put it down to him borrowing the now famous jacket a few days ago. All his cashes, and I do mean ALL his cashes, have come on in weekly £10 rebuys at Napoleon's in Hull. He doesn't even have a picture on Hendon Mob, well that will change shortly. His best cash is £785 ($1000) for winning the 11/6/17 running.
Those BB counts won't remain for very long, as there is only 8 minutes 30 seconds of Level 37 left (400K/800K with 100K ante) and the structure sheet shows Level 38 as being 500K/1m with a 150K ante)
Play will resume at 5:30pm Las Vegas time on Thursday (1:30am Friday here) and continue until 3 players have been eliminated and the remaining 6 players will move on to Day 9.
I would have thought Sky Bet would have some odds on this but it appears they don't so I've had to look elsewhere and the best prices available are
Baumstein 2-1 Hesp 4-1 Pollak 5-1 Piccioli 9-1 Saout 10-1 Lamb 12-1 Salas 16-1 Sinclair 25-1 Ott 33-1
Comments
Event 74 - $1111 The Little One For One Drop
A tournament that seems like it started a lifetime ago, and was enlivened by some superb results for Sky Poker players (well done again to one and all), is finally over and the bracelet is in the mitts of Adrian Moreno.
He had already finished 23rd in the Monster Stack and 19th in the Crazy Eights, and finished off the Series in fine style by coming from 11th of 12 at the start of Day 4 to take the bracelet and over $528K.
Norway's Martin Lesjoe was the runner-up and start-of-day chip leader Matt Berkey ended up in third.
The main is down to 28 players, they've just gone on a brief break. I don't know whether they are going to play down to 27 or play the full hour of the next level that was originally proposed. Full report when they decide to stop anyway.
Event 73 - The Main Event, Day 6
Another long and gruelling day (for some players this will have been the fifth successive 13 hour day) has seen the field reduce to just three tables.
From my earlier post, we lost two British players in quick succession, Paul vas Nunes in 55th for $121K and Artan Dedusha (who has gone for good this time!) in 52nd for $145K
While still at the $145K paypoint we breached the final 50 of the over 7000 player field
50 Cosmin Joldis, last Romanian player
49 Gregory Goldberg
48 Jae Hwang
47 Mike Linster
46 Nick Guagenti
Pay jump to $176K
45 Max Silver. Max had been doing really well at the Featured Table, but it looks like it all went sour quite quickly. A failed bluff on Daniel Turner lost half of his stack, most of the rest went when his AQ didn't improve against Alexandre Reard's AK and his last 10 BB went in with sevens against Scott Blumstein's Jacks, which held.
44 Jesus Blanco, last Spanish player
43 Dario Sammartino, last Italian player
42 Brandon Meyers
41 Ryan Leng
40 Frank Crivello
39 Sean Gibson
38 Jonathan Dwek. Dwek has got himself a whole lot of TV time with his Superman outfit, but his ME came to an end, getting his last 5 million chips in on a rivered straight, but unfortunately for the Man of Steel, he ran into Christian Pham's straight flush. This took Pham into a large chip lead with over 25 million in chips
37 Zu Zhou
Pay jump to $214K
36 Travis Lutes
35 Matt Bond. Richard Gryko took him out after a flip pre-flop and the British player pairing his Ace on the flop
34 Dann Turner
33 Andrew Ostapchenko
32 Chris Wallace
By this stage, fatigue was beginning to set in, reports elsewhere indicate John Hesp and Antoine Saout in particular were playing tired. Ben Lamb, well used to late night sessions in high stakes cash games began to take advantage
31 Joshua Marvin. Marvin's 5-bet shove pre-flop with AJ was insta-called by Valentin Messina who held AK. Three 10s and a couple of low cards on the board meant the AK held and Marvin left the table
30 Justas Vaiciulionis. The last Lithuanian remaining, he was another to fall at the hands of Gryko
Messina, Pham and Lamb were now fairly close at the top of the chip listing, with Marcel Luske (as he had been most of the day) one of the short stacks.
29 Neil Patel. Former chip leader Daniel Ott was a spot behind with his kicker pre-flop (A9 to Patel's A10) but a 9 on the flop changed things and Patel hit the rail.
28-handed play went on for over an hour and a half, and with just one more elimination to go before the players could say they made Day 7, the tension was high. A couple of shoves got through (in successive hands, both against Jonas Mackoff who folded quickly both times), and the first all-in called was when Michael Krasienko shoved with Queens and got called by Robin Hegele. The ladies held up and Krasienko had his double up and was off the immediate danger list. John Hesp got one nice pot on a three-way flop where the other two folded to a 800K bet, then he made another nice profit when he 5-bet shoved pre-flop on Ben Lamb to pick up 3m, and a few minutes later was at it again taking 6m off Daniel Ott when a hand went to showdown with the Brit's two pair being good.
28 Joshua Horton. Jack Whitehall, no sorrry Jack Sinclair and Horton saw a flop with 2 hearts and after a bet and a call, saw a turn card which was another heart. All the money went in, with Sinclair having A3 of hearts and Horton, the player at risk holding J8 of hearts. Horton had an open-ended straight flush draw on the river to save his tournament life, but it was a spade and his tournament, and everyone else's Day 6 was over.
The final hand brought Sinclair up to 3rd spot, and the highest of the 3 British players left in the event. John Hesp is still battling on (I hope he has a clean multi-coloured shirt for Day 7) in 6th and Richard Gryko is 11th.
Christian Pham is the chip leader with Messina, the top of no less than 4 French players still alive in 2nd. Ben Lamb going for his 2nd FT is 4th, Antoine Saout, in the same situation is 15th and Michael Ruane, who of course is going for Back-to-Back FTs is 16th.
Other nationalities involved are Portugal, Germany (2), Russia, Argentina (2), Canada, Netherlands and Czech Republic with the balance of the field being 10 American names.
With the drop to 3 tables, we have arrived at another pay jump and the next nine players to go will all take $263K
27. Robin Hegele
The Day 5 chip leader, Hegele, lost out in a huge confrontation with Jack Sinclair. Sinclair raised pre-flop, Hegele 3-bet to 1.8m and then the Brit shoved enought to put Hegele all in (another 5 million or so). Hegele had queens, Sinclair A10 and the ace of clubs on the turn sealed the German's fate
And while I was typing that
26. Michael Skleinicka
The Czech came in with the short stack, and went out to Christian Pham. Both players had an ace, and when another ace came on the flop all the chips went it, and Pham's better kicker was the difference when the river was a blank.
Elsehere, Marcel Luske has doubled up and John Hesp has taken a chunk of Jack Sinclair to move him into the chip lead. Brits 1 & 2 at this stage, with over 30m chips each. The average stack at the FT will be somewhere around the 40m mark. The third Brit, Richard Gryko is still sitting in the middle of the field, on more or less the same stack as he started the day with.
25. Florian Lohnert
Down to 14 BB, he picked up a pocket pair (sixes) and decided that was enough to shove with, but unfortunately for him, sitting directly on his left, Christian Pham had a pair of nines. No six came and Lohnert was sent to the rail.
24. Jake Bazeley. Hand not reported yet.
Play entered Level 33 (150K/300K with a 50K ante - the ante now the same as the Day 1 starting stack.
Edit - the WSOP are now placing Bazeley 25th and Lohnert 24th, not that it makes a huge amount of difference. Bazeley went out in a classic race, his pocket 10s being looked up by Ben Pollak with AK, and there was an ace on the flop.
23. Marcel Luske
22. David Guay
The veteran Dutchman has been battling a short stack for seemingly ages and his run of double ups. He held A8 but Ben Pollok's pocket Jacks dispatched the last Dutch player from the Main Event.
Guay 3-bet a raise from Valentin Messina for all his chips (5m) with pocket twos, and holding about 14m and AK, Messina called. The flop and turn 6-7-10-9 gave the Canadian a whole lot of safe cards for the river, but the Ace of diamonds was not one of them and Guay bid farewell to the Main for another year.
Jack Sinclair still holds the big stack, John Hesp having dropped down to third, marginally behind Scott Blumstein.
We still have two players from Hoboken, New Jerset (just across the Hudson from Manhattan) - Michael Ruane & Randy Pisane although both are now shortish stacked, and Blumstein is from only 30 miles away in Morristown.
BT Sport 1 coverage starts in 10 minutes for a couple of hours.
21 Jonas Mackoff
Mackoff falls to Jack Sinclair, A9 against AJ and no dramas on the board.
Still 4 French players left at this point, and in French on French action, Antoine Saout doubles through Messina. 21 French players cashed in all in this years ME.
20. Randy Pisane
Pisane had pocket queens, bet a 10-9-x flop for 1.7m, Hesp raised with A9 to 3.5m and Pisane went all in for about another million more. Hesp stopped and thought about it for a while but really had no option to call considering the pot odds and he celebrated when an Ace came on the turn. It was a third heart though, and with Pisane having the Queen of hearts, it gave him a 25% chance on the river, but the card was a blank and Hesp knocked out another one to reduce the field to the teens.
19 Christian Pham
He picked a bad spot to bet into Ben Pollak, because the Frenchman had the aces. Another on the flop, but giving Pham a flush draw, but the final card was of no help and Pham went from 1st place to out of the Main Event in about three hours play.
This of course means a reduction to two tables, a re-draw for seats and a payjump to $340,000. The next ladder will be to 15 players, and a mighty fine ladder it will be, for over $100K
The first bustout from the final two tables must have happened just after I called it a night, and unfortunately it was one of the three remaining British players
18. Richard Gryko $340K
Gryko hadn't been able to get much going on Day 7, so when Antoine Saout raised to 1m from Under The Gun and it folded around to Gryko who held KQ, he put his last 7m or so. Saout didn't snap call, but call he did and showed pocket tens. There was no help for Gryko on the flop or the turn, and to add insult to inury the river was a third ten.
By contrast, Michael Grisienko had been rather active but his run came to an end in a textbook cooler, his pocket queens coming up against Jack Sinclair's Kings and not improving.
17. Michael Grisienko $340K
As level 34 came to a close, Jack Sinclair had amassed over 66m chips, with Scott Blumstein on almost 50m and Ben Pollak third on 34m. John Hesp continued to be involved in lots of pots and had dropped a few, but still had a very healthy stack, as did Saout.
16. Alexandre Reard $340K.
Reard managed a short stack for most of the Day, and with about 13 BB and the level rise imminent, he must have been loving life when he picked up AQ Under The Gun, and of course all those 13BB went in. What didn't make him happy was that, in the Small Blind, Ben Lamb was sitting with AK. An easy call from the former November Niner and five cards later, the Frenchman was being escorted to the payout cage.
Sinclair continued to chip up, often at the expence of Hemp while on the other table Richard Dubini was beginning to get agressive, opening several pots in a row, winning several without a flop being needed.
As dinner break approached, Sinclair's seemingly unbroken upward trend slipped a little. He lost three hands in quick succession, one to Hesp, and two to Pedro Oliveira. None of them by themselves huge hands but a couple of million here, a couple of million there and his large lead had been whittled down somewhat.
Shortly before the break, the French challenge was down to 2
15 Valentin Messina $450K
With the price of poker getting more expensive, Messina's stack had dribbled down to the point where he only had about 8BB. Lamb raised to 1.1m and after it folded around to Messina in the Big Blind with JQ, he shoved and Lamb duly called with AJ. Lamb dominated Messina. The latter did pick up a gut shot on the flop, but nothing came to help in on the turn or the river and he was eliminated.
On the very next hand on the same table, Scott Stewart 3-bet shoved with pocket Jacks, and was looked up by table chip leader Scott Blumstein who was behind with pocket nines. The flop came three clubs and with Stewart having the jack of clubs, this left Blumstein with only one out. It didn't come and Stewart doubled up.
So at dinner break, Sinclair had 62m and Hesp, Blumstein and Pollak were all in the thirties. Russian Karen Sarkisyan was the short stack, with last year's November Niner Michael Ruane still in the market for a repeat, with his stack being down to 23BB.
After the break, the first significant action involved Ruane, and it saw him come from behind when he was all in pre-flop with Q10 and quickly called by Scott Stewart with AK. A ten on the flop and a queen on the turn gave Ruane two pair but left Stewart with a gut shot to Broadway, but the blank on the river saw Ruane double up.
14. Karen Sarkisyan $450K.
The Russian couldn't hang on any longer and put his last chips in with Q8 suited. The call from Sinclair was for only about 10% of his stack so with pocket twos in the big blind it was an easy call. A Queen on the flop put Sarkisyan in front, but with 2 hearts on the flop and another on the turn it gave the Brit a flush draw, which duly hit and the runner-runner cards knocked out Sarkisyan in 14th.
After hand 163, Bryan Piccoli went to his rail, telling the that his short stack would be in the middle shortly, and true to his word on the very next hand, that' what happened. In they went with the very nice looking KQ of hearts backing them up. Ben Pollak obliged but his J10 was behind and a Queen on the flop and four low cards sealed a double up for Piccoli. On he previous hand, Pollok had taken several million off Sinclair with a straight, so it was you win some, you lose some.
Since then, they played perhaps a dozen hands on each table and he man in the crazy suit (but he was wearing a more sensible shirt today), John Hesp has re-taken the chip lead. Sinclair makes it a Brit 1-2 and Blumstein is 3rd. Daniel Ott has quietly chipped back up to 4th, while at the other end of the scale Stewart is the short stack, Richard Dubini (one of two remaining Argentinian players) is 2nd shortie and despite his recent double-up, Piccoli is far from safe.
Play continues with 13 players, next man out claims $535K. I think we'll be here for a while yet.
The Ace of clubs on the flop put Stewart further ahead, but it was accompanied by another club giving Blumstein the draw. The turn was a meaningless diamond, but the 4 of clubs on the river gave Blumstein the nuts and sent the bandana-wearing Stewart out of the event.
13. Scott Stewart $535K
This moved Blumstein right amongst the two Brits as the biggest stacks in the room.
The final table this year is going to take place from three days from 5:30pm Thursday Vegas time (1:30am Friday here) and is being played in the Brasilia room where the featured tables are now. There is no Penn & Teller Theater stage this time around.
12. Richard Dubini $535K
The Argentinian was another victim of the rampant Blumstein. Dubini's pocket queens were in good shape pre-flop but were only 80% favouites against Blumstein's A2, and the 1 in 5 chance hit with an Ace on the flop. There were picture cards on both the last two cards Dubini saw, but one was a King and the other a Jack, neither any help.
Blumstein is now chip leader, with just two more eliminations tonight before the FT is set. Those looking most vulnerable at the moment are Bryan Piccoli (22BB), Ben Lamb (32BB) and Pedro Oliveira (35BB)
Piccoli got a much neeed double up through Antoine Saout when his pocket eights were looked up by the Frenchman's A4. Two aces on the flop gave Saout three of a kind, but after a blank on the turn the third eight (well it would do at some point with so many players wearing 888 branding) sealed the double up.
Pedro Oliviera and John Hesp played a hand that didn't look too impactful to start with after a 1.5m raise and a call pre-flop, Hesp flopped a flush and for once, played it slow and it went check-check, but it all happened on the turn when Oliviera found an ace to give him 2 pair. Hesp checked again, Oliviera bet 2m then Hesp check-raised to 5m and the Portuguese came back over the top all-in for about 15m, which Hesp called. The river was yet another club and so it was
11. Pedro Oliveria $675K.
He left Portugal when restrictions on online poker came in and moved to Brazil, but maybe able to return home soon as there is talk of a merged liquidity pool for Portugal, France, Italy & Spain being build under joint regulation soon.
This brought the players all together to one big unofficial Final Table. Hesp (71m), Blumstein (66m) and Sinclair (58m) were the big stacks, with a large gap, with fourth to tenth all clustered between 16 and 30m.
Last year, 10-handed play was more or less over as soon as it started, but it took 20 hands this time. Hesp started as if it was his local £10 rebuy in Hull, moving his stack up another 10m mostly at the expense of Sinclair, and within another 5 hands another 10m after forcing first Ruane and then Ott to lay down pots they'd invested in.
Hand 178 was a huge hand. Hesp raised (why not, it's been working all event), Blumstein called and Sinclair 3-bet at which point Hesp found a fold but Blumstein called. Sinclair bet and Blumstein called both flop and turn by which time the pot was getting rather large. The Brit put in another 13m on the river, which caused Blumstein thought a long time about before finally calling. Sinclair mucked, obviously on a bluff and Blumstein's pocket 10s (which hadn't improved) saw him shoved a mountain of chips and the chip lead, with Sinclair dropping down into the pack.
More to come in a minute...
Hand 179 Hesp raised, Pollak re-raised to 4m and Hesp called, checked all the way to the river when a 4.5m Pollak bet saw Hesp fold and drop a few million from his monster stack
Hand 180 Sinclair's button raise saw everyone else fold for an easy pick up of a few chips
Hand 181 Blumstein's mid-position raise saw everyone else fold.
Hand 182 Sinclair raised from the Hijack, Lamb shoved shoved for almost 15m from the small blind which was enough to get Sinclair to fold
Hand 183 It was Hesp's turn to raise and induce a chain of folds.
Hand 184 The pivotal hand. Ruane moved all in from mid position with that turned out to be AK. With the stakes as high as they were, it was no surprise that Piccioli went into the tank for a couple of minutes with pocket tens but he eventually called and we were off to the races for 34 million chips. Neither player came close to improving and in a huge swing of chips Piccioli was more or less safe and Ruane was down to 2BB and needing a miracle or some proper barnacle play.
Hand 185 Pollak raised to 2.5m and with Ruane so short, no one wanted to take him on
Hand 186 Ruane found a suited ace and understandably shoved his last 1.9m in. Salas re-shoved and the action folded to Saout in the big blind who open folded A9. Salas had pocket Jacks, so Ruane needed to find an ace or lots of clubs. One club came on the flop but it was not enough and when the turn was a heart, he needed to hit a two-outer on the river to continue his amazing quest to "do a Newhouse" and make 2 consecutive ME FTs. The dealer paused, waited for the signal to continue, burned a card and then turned over the Queen of spades.
10. Michael Ruane $825001. I'm sure that extra $1 will come in handy.
Lamb and Saout's November Nine winnings make then the top two money winners of the group, with the second Frenchman, Ben Pollak third and Piccioli fourth.
Pollak is the highest placed player in the GPI rankings at 116, with Saout second and Piccioli third (Lamb rarely plays live MTTs these days so he's down at number 16828
That leaves five players. Jack Sinclair is a major presence online but a comparitive rookie live, not ratching his first recorded cash until this April at DTD and other than that only has two small cashes from this years WSOP
Damien Salas has cashed in the ME twice before, 606th in 2013 and 418th last year. His lifetime cashes come to just over $900K which of course he'll more than double with the minimum of a cool million just for making the FT.
Dan Ott (whose brother also played the ME and was on the rail yesterday) had no recorded live cashes anywhere at the start of the WSOP. The brothers teamed up in the $1K tag team event to pick up $990 each, and Dan had a decent run in the Monster Stack where he cashed for $2666. He's in a completely different league now.
Chip leader Scott Baumstein has $312K of live cashes according to the WSOP report, but $1.6m according to Hendon Mob. Whether there's two players that have been combined or someone's got their wires croses, who knows? What is beyond dispute is that he has 2 cashes from this year's WSOP, both in huge field events (Marathon & Millionaire Maker). He cashed the Main in 2015, 2010 & 2009.
Who am I missing, John Hesp of course. His story has become well known now, of course Tikay will put it down to him borrowing the now famous jacket a few days ago. All his cashes, and I do mean ALL his cashes, have come on in weekly £10 rebuys at Napoleon's in Hull. He doesn't even have a picture on Hendon Mob, well that will change shortly. His best cash is £785 ($1000) for winning the 11/6/17 running.
Stacks
Blumstein 97m 122BB
Hesp 86m 107BB
Pollak 35m 44BB
Piccioli 34m 42BB
Ott 26m 33BB
Salas 22m 28BB
Saout 21m 27BB
Sinclair 20m 25BB
Lamb 18m 23BB
Those BB counts won't remain for very long, as there is only 8 minutes 30 seconds of Level 37 left (400K/800K with 100K ante) and the structure sheet shows Level 38 as being 500K/1m with a 150K ante)
Play will resume at 5:30pm Las Vegas time on Thursday (1:30am Friday here) and continue until 3 players have been eliminated and the remaining 6 players will move on to Day 9.
I would have thought Sky Bet would have some odds on this but it appears they don't so I've had to look elsewhere and the best prices available are
Baumstein 2-1
Hesp 4-1
Pollak 5-1
Piccioli 9-1
Saout 10-1
Lamb 12-1
Salas 16-1
Sinclair 25-1
Ott 33-1