Barny Boatman Chases Second Gold Bracelet as Five Remain in Extended Play

UK poker legend Barny Boatman comes into the fifth day of play in the $1,500 Extended Play second in chips as he chases his second gold bracelet. Austrian Adrian Apmann leads the final five with 7,300,000, while Boatman returns with 3,970,000 chips.

“Getting No. 2 tomorrow would prove a point that it wasn’t a fluke,” Boatman laughed after we spoke to him when play concluded. “But I guess you can have two flukes.”

Boatman came into the day as chip leader with 25 players remaining, and Yuri Ishida was the first to get knocked out. One of the most feared players left, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, busted in 24th followed by Andrew MacKenzie and former online No. 1 ranked player Patrick ‘pads1161’ Leonard.

Accomplished tournament pro Justin Zaki fell short of the final table in 18th place for $17,234, and the official final table was reached just before midnight with the elimination of April Facey, the last remaining women.

On the 13th hand at the final table it was Ukrainian Artem Metalidi who got his chips in extremely well, when he held queens versus Boatman’s tens and Ross Gottlieb’s threes. The board however brought a ten, and Boatman knocked out two players in one hand.

Russian pro Konstantin Puchkov was next to go in seventh place, as he collected $59,920 after running king-ten suited into Anthony Diotte’s ace-king. The last player to bust on Day 4 was Kurt Lichtman, who’s jacks were cracked by Apmann’s flopped set. The money went in on the flop and Apmann seized a big chip lead while Lichtmann collected $79,842.

Boatman reviewed his day for us, and commented on the big hand he played that sent two players to the rail.

“I’ve been absolutely exhausted all day since I couldn’t sleep last night, and today was a bit of a card-dead grind. It worked out, and I won one big flip to stay in, and then there was the big cooler where I had pocket tens. I thought the other guys with queens was just isolating, and I thought my tens were good, but they weren’t and I needed to hit a ten, so I did.”

The remaining five players are guaranteed at least $107,800 while the winner will walk away $478,102 richer. Here are the chip counts of the final five.