West in Front of Another Final Table
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Our 18 starting players have been successfully trimmed down to the requisite nine, setting the final table and putting a period on this Day 3.
When play begain, Kwinsee Tran had the biggest stack in the room, but the field was littered with potential landmines. One of those, Jesse Martin, was very short on chips to start the day, and he managed just one small double up before succumbing as the first casualty. Behind him went Romik Vartzar, and Todd Terry followed him out the door right at the end of the day's first partial level.
Ali Eslami was on the rise through the early stages of the day, thanks in part to a rush of cards. Eslami used pocket aces to win a decent pot off Dylan Wilkerson, then another pair of aces allowed Eslami to dispatch with the dangerous Scott Montgomery. By that point, Eslami was over 400,000, the first to cross that threshold.
Daniel Negreanu actually came close to 400,000 chips yesterday, tailing off at the end of the day to bag up an average stack. As kind as Day 2 was to Kid Poker, Day 3 was equally frustrating from the looks of it. The beginning of Negreanu's demise came at the hands of Wilkerson. In a medium-sized pot, Wilkerson's 
flopped the nuts on a 
board. Negreanu saved himself some chips by checking back the river before mucking, but that pot took a bite out of his stack to drop him down around 40 big blinds. Negreanu fell further in another big tangle with Wilkerson just moments later, cursing his luck as the board (
) counterfeited his mystery cards on the river to kick him back to 84,000.
Negreanu was relieved of the remainder of his stack when 
was good enough to ship with on a 
flop. Tim West called him down with 
, and he didn't have to wait long to catch up. The turn 
ended Negreanu's hopes of doubling, and the remaining field could breathe a bit easier as another dangerous player walked out of the room.
The elimination of Negreanu put the field on the bubble with 13 players remaining, and it would take four orbits to make it pop. Kyle Bowker had 72,000 chips left when he took his stand with 
, running his pair smack into Dana Kellstrom's 
. Things got a lot better for Bowker on the 
flop, and Kellstrom couldn't believe he was about to lose nearly all of his own chips. The turn 
was a blank, but the river was the game changer. The dropped off the deck to Kellstrom's utter disbelief, allowing him to re-suck to the win with his overset.
That sent Bowker out as the last unpaid customer, and the final 12 cashers stuck around to play for three more knockouts. Short stacks Joe Parker and Alejandro Garcia were the next two to fall, cueing the final redraw and putting the field one elimination away from a Regional Championship final table.
That unfortunate elimination came at the expense of Kwinsee Tran, the chip leader when play began today. It wasn't the way he'd envisioned it; two of the shortest stacks doubled up at the final table to prolong the day, and Tran's chip count began going in the wrong direction at the same time. He was responsible for one of those doubles, in fact, when David Peters got his money in with his 
drawing on a 
flop. Tran had flopped a set with pocket nines, but Peters found his fifth spade on the 
river to steal the pot and leave Tran crippled. The rest of Tran's money went to Tim West, tens versus jacks to end the day.
For West, it was just gravy on his already-commanding chip lead. Earlier in ten-handed play, West won the largest pot of the tournament in a tangle with chip leader Dylan Wilkerson. The latter went with 
, running Big Slick right into West's . The turn was scary for West on the 
board, but the blank 
river allowed West to double into a huge chip lead. Wilkerson was crippled, but he managed to limp into the final table with less than 100,000 chips.
The stage is set for tomorrow, and it figures to be a whale of a final table. Tim West is on some kind of heater right now, fresh of a win in the $5,000 Wynn Poker Classic a week ago and a score of well over $300,000. West is looking for an encore victory here in Rincon, but he'll have to dodge the likes of Dwyte Pilgrim, Ali Eslami, and Steve Brecher before he can slip the ring onto his finger.
Here's how the final table will stack up when the final table commences at noon tomorrow:
| Seat | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dwyte Pilgrim | 408,000 |
| 2 | Miller Dao | 99,000 |
| 3 | David Peters | 437,000 |
| 4 | Ali Eslami | 395,000 |
| 5 | D.J. Blanchard | 271,000 |
| 6 | Tim West | 843,000 |
| 7 | Dylan Wilkerson | 89,000 |
| 8 | Steve Brecher | 246,000 |
| 9 | Dana Kellstrom | 147,000 |
That's all we have for tonight, but we'll be back tomorrow to crown the Western Regional Champion. Until tomorrow then, all that's left is goodnight.