The grandest live poker tournament in the world has reached the end of its fourth day at the Rio, and only 310 runners have survived to reach the fifth day. They will be contesting the 1st prize of $8,800,000, or at least hoping to take home some substantial piece of the $74,015,600 prize pool. With 7,874 players having bought into this event, making it the second largest field in history, less than 5% of the field are now still alive.
Barry Hutter leads the way
Leading the way at this point is Barry Hutter with 5,597,000 chips, which equates to around 280 big blinds. Female pro Kelly Minkin is flying high with 3,459,000, Benjamin Pollak has a healthy stack with 2,765,000, former final tablist of this event James Akenhead has 2,187,000 and three-time bracelet winner Shaun Deeb is also among the bigger stacks with 2,175,000.
Further down the order is another more recent final tablist of the Main Event, Cliff ‘JohhnyBax’ Josephy who has 1,985,000 and 2nd place finisher of ten years ago, Ivan Demidov who has 1,290,000. Antonio Esfandiari is also in a comfortable position with 1,260,000, as are Paul Volpe with 1,070,000, Daniel Alaei with 916,000 and Chris Moorman with 907,000. Former champion Joe Cada is also still in contention with 559,000.
Asian players still in the fight
Among the great Asian hopes for this title is Hong Kong’s Daniel Tang, who may be listed as a UK player by the WSOP but is a regular on the Asian poker scene. He currently has 2,901,000.
Japan’s Takashi Ogura is going strong with 1,975,000, China’s Ming Xi is also up there with 1,933,000, as is another Chinese player, Xi Yang, who has 1,595,000.
Other Chinese players are still in contention, including Yueqi Zhu who has 1,117,000, and Yang Zhang, who has 601,000.
Kartik Ved and Vivek Rughani are also still flying the flag for India with 1,096,000 and 1,076,000 respectively.
One of Asia’s best-known pros, Park ‘Sparrow’ Yu Cheung of Hong Kong is still clinging on with 222,000.
Australian players move forward
James Obst is a player who is quickly making a name for himself in live poker, having already established himself as one of the best tournament pros online. With a stack of 2,560,000 he headlines the Australian players left in the field, but has great company in the form of Alex Lynskey, who has 1,635,000. Further down the order are other Australian hopefuls such as Andrew Hinrichsen with 1,100,000 and Julius Colman with 802,000.
Key fallers on day 4
The biggest story of the day was the elimination of fan favourite Phil Ivey. Poker’s greatest star made an overbet bluff raise on the river, only to be called down by top two. Several other notable names also fell, including Patrik Antonius, Mustapha Kanit, Eugene Katchalov, Barry Greenstein and Allen Cunningham.
Among the key Asian fallers of the day are Baoqiang Ho, who finished 761st and Aditya Agarwal who fell in 717th. Both players picked up $19,900 in prize money.
The Philippines had a difficult day in the tournament, as Mike Takayama fell in 421st place for $29,625 and Marc Rivera could not do better than 551st place picking up $23,940 along the way.
Japan’s Shinya Shimada finished 452nd for $29,625 and Taiwan’s Chen An Lin hit the rail in 403rd for $33,305.
Somuchpoker will keep track of the action so stay with us as we update you on the Day 5 results and the progress of the Asian players.
Article by Craig Bradshaw
