The last three days of Moneymaker’s Road to PSPC – Seminole have been a lot of fun. But as Chris Moneymaker was telling us earlier, “These events are low stress, until you get to the final table.”
Well, here we are. About to turn the knob up on that stress meter a notch or five. From a 464-entry field just nine remain. Final table time!
To recap the day thus far, a couple of hours after making the call to shuffle up and deal, Moneymaker was at last dealt out of the event in 32nd place, earning himself yet another cash on his own Road to PSPC.
On the short side and getting folded to in the small blind, Moneymaker looked down at ace-nine suited and felt good enough to jam his chips in the middle. But when his opponent Wanlop Phonphornwithoon in the big blind looked at his cards, he felt even better about matching the bet — he’d picked up a pair of aces.
The board produced the case ace but not the improvement Moneymaker needed, and he bid all goodbye and good game before departing in 32nd place.
Scott Baumstein had begun the day near the top of the counts, and after slipping back down the leaderboard he’d climbed back to first position shortly after Moneymaker’s demise.
With 27 left, however, Mark Cannon shot to the top as the first player to reach the 1 million-chip mark.
A couple of hours after that they were down to two tables, and with 18 left start-of-day leader Zoltan Czinkota had zoomed back into the lead.
Players continued to fall, then just before the dinner hour Mario Jiminez fell in 10th and the final table was set.
Baumstein enjoys a healthy chip lead as the final table begins, but there’s still a long way to go on Moneymaker’s Road. Here are the approximate counts as they get going:
1 – Scott Baumstein, USA – 2,150,000
2 – Fred White, USA – 1,300,000
3 – Wanlop Phonphornwithoon, USA – 1,150,000
4 – Daniel Socorro, Venezuela – 1,000,000
5 – Jorge Gomez, USA – 1,000,000
6 – Edgardo Rosario, Puerto Rico – 550,000
7 – Mark Cannon, USA – 470,000
8 – Matt Suarez, USA – 450,000
9 – Zoltan Czinkota, USA – 375,000
There’s a lot on the line, too. The next player out wins $2,785, while there’s $32,720 up top and, of course, that Platinum Pass and package to play in the 2020 PokerStars Players Championship worth another $30K.
Keep calm and follow those updates (click below)!
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