Daniel Negreanu Big Stack going into WSOP Australia Main Event Final Table
Story via PokerListings and WSOP.com:
"SPINDLER AND NEGREANU BRING BIG STACKS TO MAIN EVENT FINAL TABLE
APRIL 14, 2013 - 7:49:45 AM PST | Jessica Welman
Since expanding bracelet events beyond Las Vegas in 2007, the World Series of Poker has offered seven Main Events in Europe and now Australia. Daniel Negreanu has final tabled nearly half of them. The four time bracelet winner already made back-to-back Main Event final tables at WSOP Europe in 2009 and 2010. Now he has a shot at WSOP Asia Pacific gold, as he is one of just eight players left vying for the bracelet.
When Day 4 play began at the Crown Casino in Melbourne, the AU$10,000 Main Event had 15 players still in the running, but that number quickly dwindled down to a final table. The action even got a late start after Negreanu and Antonio Esfandiari got held up with their participation in the televised Caesars Cup event, but the final table was set before 10pm, giving the players a nice long night of rest before Monday?s 2pm final table.
One player who won?t be in the line-up for the televised final table is our reigning One Drop Champion, Esfandiari. The three-time bracelet winner exited the tournament in ninth place when his A-K lost a crucial coinflip to Benny Spindler?s pocket queens to bring the day to a close.
Thanks to Esfandiari?s chips and a busy day at the table, Spindler of Germany will begin final table play with the chip lead and almost 3 million chips. Negreanu trails the European pro by about half a million chips, and both Daniel Marton and George Tsatsis are in 2 million chip territory as well.
Those four players have most of the chips at the final table, while none of the other four have over a million in their stack. Despite starting the day as chip leader, October Niner Russell Thomas will be one of the shorter stacks at the table with just 490,000. The shortest stack belongs to Asian pro Winfred Yu, who managed to double up, cling to his tournament life, and end the day with 367,000 chips.
While the big names may hail from Canada, USA, Germany, and Macau, there is a fair amount of local representation at the tables, as Marton, Habb, and Burns try to join bracelet winner Aaron Lim in the winner?s circle for the host country of Australia.
The final table will be filmed for television as well as livestreamed online on WSOP.com and ESPN3. Tune it at approximately 2pm local time/12am ET to watch these eight players fight for a seven-figure first place payday and the honor of being the first-ever WSOP APAC Main Event Champion. Live updates of the final table will also be available.
Main Event final table chip counts and seat assignments. When play resumes, blinds will be at 10,000/20,000 ante 3,000:
Seat 1: Daniel Marton ? 2,160,000
Seat 2: George Tsatsis ? 2,321,000
Seat 3: Mikel Habb ? 551,000
Seat 4: Benny Spindler ? 2,931,000
Seat 5: Winfred Yu ? 367,000
Seat 6: Russell Thomas ? 490,000
Seat 7: Kahle Burns ? 905,000
Seat 8: Daniel Negreanu ? 2,437,000"
