World Poker Tour Bellagio Cup: Phil Ivey Takes Center Stage at TV Final Table
While the World Series of Poker Main Event is still taking place down the street at the Rio, the Bellagio Poker room is also abuzz as the World Poker Tour Bellagio Cup has managed to reach the final six with none other than Mr. Phil Ivey in contention for another major title with 1,595,000 in chips.
Ivey took full advantage of the extremely late registration rules that were in effect for this event, due in part to the sponsors wanting to allow as many WSOP Main Event players to enter as possible. He registered Tuesday afternoon at around 1:30 p.m. with just a 20 big-blind stack when many of his opponents had worked their stacks well into six figures. Well, Ivey being Ivey, his short stack did not stop him and he ended Tuesday in eighth place after doubling up in short order and bulldozing his tablemates for the rest of the day.
Although Ivey was unable to ride Tuesday's momentum into a huge stack, he did manage to make the final table and sits in fifth place out of the six remaining players. Ivey will be joined by Justin "BoostedJ" Smith, who made the final table of this very event last year, Rob Akery, Eric Afriat, Moritz Kranich, and the man with almost double the stack of his closest competitor, John Caridad.
Mario Ho, also had a great run in this event finishing in 10th place. Her run came to an end when she got all her chips into the middle holding pocket tens against John Caridad's A♣J♣. The flop all but ended it for Ho coming Q♣8♣7♣, and the rest of the board was just as nasty with the 3♠ hitting the turn and the unnecessary A♥ dropping on the river.
Here's how the final table will look when play gets underway Thursday afternoon:
Seat 1: Phil Ivey - 1,595,000
Seat 2: Justin Smith - 2,100,000
Seat 3: Rob Akery - 1,980,000
Seat 4: Eric Afriat - 620,000
Seat 5: Moritz Kranich - 2,715,000
Seat 6: John Caridad - 5,120,000
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