Dominik Panka raised to 100,000 with from under the gun. Fabian Ortiz called with out of the hijack and the rest of the table folded.
The dealer produced and Panka continued for 165,000. Ortiz flatted and the paired the board on fourth street. Ortiz fired again with top pair for 335,000 total. Ortiz stuck around and the finished off the board.
Both players checked and Panka tabled his king-queen for the win. He's now up to about 4.2 million in chips.
Daniel Gamez opened to 100,000 in the cutoff with , Pascal Lefrancois called on the button with , and the flop fell . Gamez led out for 155,000, and Lefrancois snap-folded.
Isaac Baron raised to 90,000 from early position with , Mike McDonald called in the cutoff with , and Pascal Lefrancois defended his big blind with . The flop fell , giving everyone a pair, and the action checked to McDonald. He checked as well.
The turn was the , giving a McDonald a spade draw to go along with his pair of tens, and Lefrancois led out for 185,000. Both Baron and McDonald called.
The completed the board, giving both Lefrancois and McDonald a straight, and the former checked. Baron checked as well, and McDonald fired out 450,000.
Lefrancois tanked for well over two minutes before folding, and Baron snap-folded.
Canadian student Pascal LeFrancois first shot to fame in 2010 when he won the WSOP $1,500 NL Event $568,974. However it wasn’t his victory that made him famous – it was the fact that he ripped off his shirt and posed bare-skinned in the traditional winner’s photo shot. It was the first time any player in the history of the WSOP had gone bare-chested for the champion’s portrait. He said at the time that he’d done as a joke for friends: “They were all cheering for me to take off my shirt. I was excited, so I did it.” Only a month after that victory, LeFrancois then went really deep in the WSOP Main Event, finishing 11th for $ 635,011 – his biggest cash to date. His other major result was runner-up to fellow Canadian Jonathan Roy in the 2012 WPT Montreal Main Event for $470,130. His lifetime tournament winnings already total nearly $1.8 million. LeFrancois is here at the PCA for the fourth time and has been an EPT regular for the last four years as well. He is one of a large group of French-Canadian players who have started playing on the EPT circuit.
Panka, who hails from the tiny town of Brześć Kujawski in Poland, is enjoying the deepest run he’s ever experienced in a live event. Before this year’s PCA Main Event, Panka only had $8,092 in live tournament cashes to his name, the majority of that from a 42nd place finish in the EPT 10 Barcelona Estrellas €2k High Roller. Guaranteed $173,220 for eighth making the PCA final, Panka is now set to earn at least 21 times his lifetime tournament cashes. Panka is the ninth player hailing from Poland to make an EPT final table but no Pole has ever laid claim to a title. Entering the final table fourth in chips, Panka has a solid chance to make history and become the first Polish EPT champion. He won his seat to the 2014 PCA in a $700 Mega Qualifier on PokerStars.
Shyam Srinivasan isn’t a well-recognized face on the live circuit, but his online handles “g’s zee” (PokerStars) and “s_dot111” (Full Tilt Poker) certainly are by those in the know. Srinivasan has clocked up more than $7m in online tournament winnings and is looking to convert that success into a PCA title tomorrow.
"I think I'm gonna win," Srinivasan told the PokerStars Blog. "That's it. I'm not here to do anything else. I know I'm gonna win. I told myself I'm gonna win… and anything else would be a disappointment to me because you don't know when this opportunity will come up again." Srinivasan won his seat in the PCA $700 Qualifier on PokerStars.
Originally from Menlo Park, Calfornia, Baron now calls Chicago, Illinois home. It’s not the only major change for the 26-year-old online poker legend. Baron has lost a lot of weight in recent months and is hardly recognizable. This is Baron’s first major final table in nearly two years.
“It’s been a while since I made a big final table. I’ve kind of been flying under the radar. I haven’t been playing too many tournaments,” he said.”
In the meantime, the man with millions in online wins and $2.6 million in live cashes has been playing live cash games and taking some college classes. He’s looking forward to getting back to the big time.
“I had decided to give tournaments a break for a little while, but I decided in the New Year I was going to give them another go. It’s going good so far.”
Fabian Ortiz, a 44-year-old businessman from Argentina, has owned several discos during his career, but recently he’s been doing most of his dancing on the poker circuit. Ortiz was the first Latin American player to win a LAPT title when he made a sensational comeback from just one small blind to take down LAPT2 Viña del Mar in Chile in January 2009. But his biggest live result was last summer when he finished 17th in the WSOP Main Event for a cash of $357,655. His lifetime tournament winnings of $565,570 put him at third on the Argentina All time money list, behind Team PokerStars Pros Nacho Barbero and Leo Fernandez.
![[user196676]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
from under the gun. Fabian Ortiz called with 
out of the hijack and the rest of the table folded.
and Panka continued for 165,000. Ortiz flatted and the 
paired the board on fourth street. Ortiz fired again with top pair for 335,000 total. Ortiz stuck around and the 
finished off the board.
. Isaac Baron called from the big blind with 
.
, Pascal Lefrancois called on the button with 
, and the flop fell 
. Gamez led out for 155,000, and Lefrancois snap-folded.
, Mike McDonald called in the cutoff with 
, and Pascal Lefrancois defended his big blind with 
, giving a McDonald a spade draw to go along with his pair of tens, and Lefrancois led out for 185,000. Both Baron and McDonald called.
