2012 World Poker Tour World Championship Day 4: Hafiz Khan Leads; Money Bubble Looms
The $25,000 World Poker Tour World Championship continued with play on Tuesday with Day 4 action. The clock was stopped at the end of Level 18 and play was halted for the night with just 19 players remaining. Leading the way was Hafiz Khan with 1.966 million in chips. Trailing Khan in second place was Marvin Rettenmaier with 1.87 million.
When the day began, 44 players returned to action. As things progressed, one by one, players started to hit the rail. Of those eliminated early on in the day were Joseph Elpayaa, Matt Waxman, David Chiu, David “Doc” Sands, Hoyt Corkins and JP Kelly. Falling after that were David Steicke in 27th place, Sam Trickett in 25th place and start-of-the-day chip leader Curt Kohlberg in 24th place.
Finishing in 23rd place was Nicolas Fraioli after he was sent home by Khan. According to the WPT Live Updates Team, Khan opened to 22,000 from under the gun during Level 17 with the blinds at 5,000/10,000/1,000. Play moved over to Fraioli and he shoved his last 66,000 into the middle. When action folded back to Khan, he made the call holding the A♠4♠. Fraioli tabled the K♥10♣. The flop, turn and river ran out Q♠8♠8♥5♠9x to give Khan a winning flush and eliminate Fraioli.
The last two eliminations of the day belonged to two former WPT champions, Antonio Esfandiari (21st) and Jonathan Little (20th). Both of them were knocked out by Day 2 chip leader Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi.
It was reported by the WPT Live Updates Team that Mizrachi scored both knockouts in the last level of the day with the blinds at 6,000/12,000/2,000. Esfandiari was the shortest stack of the three and was all in with KxJx. Little had the second shortest stack and was all in with AxKx. Mizrachi held QxJx and covered both players. Although Mizrachi went into the three-way all-in battle with the worst of it, he finished with the best hand by catching a queen on the turn to win the pot. From there, Mizrachi went on to end the day with 1.168 million in chips.
Other players still remaining are Steve O'Dwyer, Barry Shulman, Tom McCormick and Farzad Bonyadi.
WPT World Championship Day 4 Top 10 Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hafiz Khan | 1,966,000 |
| 2 | Marvin Rettenmaier | 1,870,000 |
| 3 | Nick Schulman | 1,315,000 |
| 4 | Trevor Pope | 1,300,000 |
| 5 | Wil Wilkinson | 1,197,000 |
| 6 | Moon Kim | 1,194,000 |
| 7 | Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi | 1,168,000 |
| 8 | John Esposito | 1,080,000 |
| 9 | Steve O'Dwyer | 1,079,000 |
| 10 | Matt Juttelstad | 935,000 |
Although he has already been eliminated from this event, Will “The Thrill” Failla still has a sweat. As things currently stand, Failla leads the WPT Season X Player of the Year race with 2,050 points. Four of the 19 remaining players still have a chance at overtaking Failla for the POY title and they are Joe Serock, Moon Kim, Matt Juttelstad and Rinat Bogdanov.
Serock has the best shot at overtaking Failla. All he needs to do is place 15th or better in this season-ending WPT Championship event to take the top spot. Currently, Serock sits in second place with 1,800 points. Kim must finish in fifth place or better to become number one while Juttelstad and Bogdanov must both win the event. This makes things a bit more interesting going into Day 5.
Speaking of Day 5, the action will kick off with the cards in the air at 1200 PDT (2000 BST) on Wednesday. The plan for the day is to once again play five 90-minute levels before calling it quits. The first bit of the day is set to be extremely tense as a cash and $40,266 in prize money lurks just one spot away. You can be sure to find the daily recap right here on PokerNews.
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*Lead photo courtesy of BJ Nemeth at WorldPokerTour.com
