"Jovial Gent" Leads WPT Championship After Day 6

Published on 2009-04-25 09:44:51

Yevgeniy Timoshenko has a commanding chip lead heading into the final table of the WPT Championship on Saturday.

Unfortunately for Timoshenko, there are some very good players who will be looking to claim the championship for themselves.

The final table will look like this when play resumes on Saturday:

Seat 1 Bertrand Grospellier  5,955,000
Seat 2 Scotty Nguyen  3,275,000
Seat 3 Shannon Shorr  1,130,000
Seat 4 Yevgeniy Timoshenko 13,300,000
Seat 5 Christian Harder 7,425,000
Seat 6 Ran Azor 2,525,000

The final player eliminated on Friday was Brian Rast.

Rast got involved in a massive pot with Timoshenko that vaulted Yevgeniy into the chip lead.

Both players had nearly identical stacks (5.75 million or so) when the hand got underway.

Timoshenko raised UTG to 300k. Christian Harder re-raised to 850k. Rast moved all-in from the SB, Timoshenko called, and Harder folded.

Timoshenko showed pocket Kings, while Rast showed the A-K of clubs.

The board ran out 9-8-6-6-J, and Rast was eliminated in seventh place (for $204k).

Timoshenko is an extremely skilled player and will be tough to beat at the final table. He has nearly a million dollars in live cashes over his short career, so you can expect that he will be a significant factor at the final table on Saturday.

Scotty Nguyen is still alive in the tournament as well. Nguyen, with a victory, would move into first place on the all-time tournament money list. He has his work cut out for him on Saturday though, as he will enter the final table with one of the shortest stacks.

Bertrard "ElkY" Grospellier will be looking to continue his ridiculous recent run with a strong finish on Saturday.

Since the beginning of 2008, Grospellier has:

-won the 2008 PCA for $2 million dollars
-finished in 5th place at the 2008 Grand Prix de Paris for $122k
-won the 2008 Festa al Lago Classic for $1.4 million dollars
-won the High Roller event at the 2009 PCA for $433k
-finished in third place at the High Rollers event at the EPT Deauville for $101k
-finished in third place at the 2009 National Heads-Up Championship for $125k

Grospellier has to be the hottest player on the tournament circuit right now, and he will be looking to add another title to his mantle on Saturday.

Christian Harder, Shannon Shorr and Ran Azor will also be looking to take down the $2.15 million dollar first place prize on Saturday. Of the three players, Shannon Shorr has had the most success in "live" tournaments, having cashed for nearly $3 million dollars over the past couple of years.

The final table will commence at 4 pm local time on Saturday afternoon.

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Filed Under: Live Tournament Results