Phil Galfond

Phil Galfond spends the day at the ESPN feature table, and finished about average in chips

Day 5 was a day of definition.  A day to determine who the serious contenders are to win the 2010 Main Event of the World Series of Poker.  We saw several big names fall, and several names vault to the top of the chip counts.  There will only be one champion, and when play resumes tomorrow at noon, the 206 remaining players will whittle the field ever closer to an eventual final table of 9.  

Today’s action began with a flurry of eliminations, and they didn’t stop throughout the day.  In fact, on one of the last hands of play, 1998 Main Event Champion Scotty Nguyen would succumb, getting AJ in versus pocket Kings, and would not improve, ending his 2010 run.  Other notables that would join Scotty in the payout line included Lauren Kling, Eric Buchman, Matt Matros, Karina Jett, Vince Van Patten, Bruce Buffer, Jason Lester, Vanessa Selbst, Jason Mercier, Dwyte Pilgrim, and Sammy Farha.

But several players accrued massive chip stacks to end the day.  Unofficially, the player with the most chips in the bag was Evan Lamprea with 3.5 million in chips.  Following close behind was Joseph Cheong (3.3 million), Duy Le (3.1 million), and Theo Jorgensen (3.08 million). 

There are 11 players over the 2 million chip mark, with the most prestigious name still being 2 time WSOP Main Event champion Johnny Chan.  For a 5th straight day, Chan continued to bag more chips than he began with, today finishing with a whopping 2.559 million chips.  Easily the most interesting story at the main event has been the amazing play of Chan on the worlds biggest stage.  But can he continue the deep run all the way to a November appearance? We’ll know more tomorrow.

Other notable players that made it through to see Day 6 in the Amazon Room include Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi (1.7 million) and his brother Rob Mizrachi, who would eek by with just 240k.  Others making day 6 include JP Kelly (1.4 million), Scott Clements (1.3 million), Tristan Wade (1.2 million), Phil Galfond (1.025 million), Jean-Robert Bellande (946k), David Baker (840k), Adam Levy (605k), and Eric Baldwin, who lost a monster pot on the last hand of the day to bag around 270k chips. 

Tomorrow’s play is slated for another 4 levels, with a possible 5th added if we don’t approach the number of 72 players remaining.  But at the current rate of eliminations, that number seems very likely to be hit well within the 4 levels of scheduled play.  We’ll be back in action again tomorrow from the Rio in Las Vegas.