It only took six and half levels to narrow the NAPT Mohegan Sun Main Event field from 125 players to 24. By the end of the night, two very dangerous players emerged with giant stacks -- Vanessa Selbst and Scott Seiver. Selbst started the day at the top of the counts and pushed the action all day to accumulate chips and keep the eliminations coming. Seiver, on the other hand, started the day with 10 big blinds and worked his "mastrblastr" magic to build a monster stack.
Dale Jamison, Jordan Morgan, and Alan Sternberg also have big stacks to start on Day 4. Cliff "JohnnyBax" Josephy and Jonathan Aguiar might not have big stacks but they're returning on Day 4 with enough chips to do some damage. Team PokerStars Pro Vanesssa Rousso is the last still in to represent the Stars team.
All eyes were on Phil Ivey today (and Ivey's eyes were on Tiger Woods) but he won't be back tomorrow. Ivey made a deep run, finishing in 29th place. Todd Terry, James Akenhead, Alex Keating, Ryan D'Angelo, and Eric Froehlich also finished in the top 50. Other notables that walked away with cash include David Williams, Sorel Mizzi, Jeff Madsen, and Team PokerStars Pros Dennis Phillips and Marcello Del Grosso.
The action resumes on Saturday at noon EST when the top 24 return to play down to the eight-handed televised final table. Make sure you keep your browser pointed at PokerNews to catch the drama.
Scott Seiver limped from under the gun and then William Priest raised to 32,000 from the button. His raise was for the minimum amount and Jonathan "FatalError" Aguiar called from the small blind. Cliff "JohnnyBax" Josephy called from the big blind and then Seiver tossed in the chips to call as well.
The flop came down and action checked all the way over to Priest. He fired all in for 195,000. Aguiar took a minute and then made the call. Bax and Seiver mucked to get out of the way.
"Good call," said Priest, rolling over the . Aguiar turned up the .
The turn brought the to the board and drew an "Oh god!" reaction from Bax, knowing Priest now had outs to a straight. The river didn't do it though when the fell and that was it for Priest. He finished in 25th place. With his elimination comes the end of the night as 24 players remain for Day 4.
Action folded to Derek Raymond in the small blind and he limped in. Elio Fox made it 42,000 from the big blind and Raymond re-raised to 141,000. Fox shoved and Raymond made a quick all-in call for 698,000 total.
Fox:
Raymond:
The board ran out and Raymond won the huge race to vault to 1,450,000. Fox takes a huge hit down to 320,000.
The field is only one away from making Day 4. They got there by eliminating these guys:
Earning $16,000:
26 - Ronald McGinnity, USA
27 - Clint Keown, USA
28 - [Removed:113], USA
29 - Phil Ivey, USA
30 - Matt Woodward, USA
31 - Robert Saltiel, USA
32 - David Fox, USA
Earning $13,500:
33 - Ryan Bambrick, USA
34 - Todd Terry, United States
35 - Firas Massouh, Brazil
36 - Steven Bordonaro, United States
37 - Tab Duchateau, United States
38 - James Akenhead, United Kingdom
39 - Alex Keating, USA
40 - Larry Sharp, USA
Ronald McGinnity flopped the joint. He just couldn't make it hold up. He got all the chips in on the turn of a , having flopped the nut straight with . But Jordan Morgan turned up trips with . Morgan had a fair number of outs to beat McGinnity and hit one when the river came to give him quad jacks.
McGinnity sighed and stared up at the ceiling, but he probably couldn't have done much different to avoid going broke.