Blake Bohn Leads Final 90 in WPT Five Diamond, Matt Moss in Fourth
On the third day of the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic, the 320 players to start the day were whittled down to just 90 after just more than six 90-minute levels of play.
Blake Bohn is out in front after surging into the chip lead late in the day. Second on Minnesota’s all time money list with over $2.6 million in tournament earnings, Bohn bagged 871,000. Bohn will be looking to add to his seven WPT cashes and improve upon his best WPT finish — fifth in the 2014 WPT Borgata Poker Open for $215K.
WPT Champions Club member Daniel Strelitz sits second in chips with 791,000, which is the exact same position in which he ended Day 2.
After Sean Perry, who bagged 758,000, Matthew Moss ended the day with a stack of 748,500 after flirting with the chip lead late in the day. From London, 25-year-old Moss had relatively few tournament cashes prior to 2016, when he strung together eight of them for a total of $393K including a 21st-place finish in the WSOP Main Event for $269,430.
So far in 2017, he has four cashes worth $102K. Three of those were from the WSOP, where he once again cashed in the Main – this time in 210th place for $46K. He made a big splash in the event though, becoming the first player in the field to cross the million-chip mark.
Matthew Moss Goes to WPT
“The first few levels, everything worked, I won a few big pots and didn’t really get beat in any small pots either, so it was pretty nice for me. And the last two levels were quite chill, I just sort of sat on the same stack.”
Moss decided to start playing more tournaments after getting bored with all the live cash he was playing. “So I played a few and really enjoyed it, so I started playing a few more and I’m traveling to quite a few now so maybe I’m going to make a few more runs like this hopefully.”
Moss has a place in London but also spends time in Macau and is “kind of just all over the place at the moment.”
With a short online career of just two-three years, Moss switched mostly to live cash at the ripe young age of 19. Now that he has gotten interested in tournaments though, he has gone back to playing some online to get a better feel for tournaments.
“Getting used to playing all these hands with different stack sizes and antes and stuff,” which is obviously a big shift from deep-stacked cash games.
Moss is feeling much more comfortable in tournaments now, and his plan moving forward in this one is pretty simple.
“Keep doing what I’m doing. I’m feeling pretty confident.”
Who's In, Who's Out
Plenty of WPT Champions Club members are still in the running. In addition to Strelitz, three-time champ Chino Rheem (592,500) and Matt Giannetti (549,000) also bagged top ten stacks. The other former champs still in the running include Jared Jaffee (422,500), Tony Gregg (403,500), Darren Elias (249,500), Mike Del Vecchio (239,500) and the only former WPT POY left, Benjamin Zamani (132,000). Also to note, Day 1 and Day 2 chip leader Brandon Meyers is still top ten in chips, currently in sixth place with 638,000.
Among the previous WPT champs to bust during the day’s action were Will Failla, Stefan Schillhabel, Shawn Buchanan, Mohsin Charania, Andjelko Andrejevic, defending champion James Romero, Chris Moorman, former WPT commentator Mike Sexton, Ryan Riess, Lee Markholt, Erik Seidel, Noah Schwartz, Brandon Cantu, Kevin Saul, Pat Lyons, Seth Davies, Taylor Paur, Olivier Busquet, Scott Clements, Ravi Raghavan, Justin Young, Dylan Wilkerson, Gus Hansen, Kevin Eyster, Jesse Sylvia, James Carroll and former POYs Mukul Pahuja and Andy Frankenberger.ClubWPT “King of the Club” qualifier Jan Garner and ClubWPT online qualifier Mike Evans both stuck around for a while, but ultimately fell on Day 3. Daniel Negreanu and WPT Raw Deal Analyst Phil Hellmuth were also eliminated.
The money will be reached early in Day 3, which kicks off at noon Vegas time. The minimum payout will be $19,691 starting with 81st place, with $1.958 million up top.
Check back at PokerNews.com for stories from the tournament floor. For live updates, see the WPT live reporting blog.
Photos courtesy of WPT/Joe Giron
