Home / Poker News December 2009 / PokerStars WPT Five Diamond Poker Classic – Day 3 report
PokerStars WPT Five Diamond Poker Classic – Day 3 report
Posted by: James Carter. - Fri, 2009-12-18 11:26
Day 3 of the PokerStars WPT’s Five Diamond World Poker Classic saw Daniel Alaei soar to the top of the provisional chip leader board, having amassed a stack of 1,664,000 chips. Steven Landfish, the leader of the previous day, managed to hang on to a top spot as the field shrank to 36. Landfish accumulated 1,172,000 chips. He was followed by Josh Arieh with 1,112,000 and Scotty Nguyen with 981,500. Matt Waxman and Joseph Elpayaa finished on healthy stacks too.
As you can probably tell from the names listed above, this event was by no means a push over. The cream of the crop of the live and
online poker world was present at registration and the massive spree of eliminations that characterized Day 3 only meant that many top name pros were bounced from the
PokerStars WPT tables. After all, if someone was bounced chances were he was a top “name” player, due to the high density of such pros per square foot of green felt at the Bellagio.
Among those eliminated on Day 3 were David Pham, Dave Ulliott, Erik Seidel, Howard Lederer, Bertrand Grospellier, and Sorel Mizzi, who went from Day 1 hero to Day 3 zero.
Lederer played his chances well, and his elimination was the result of a bad beat he took from Curt Kohlberg.
He shoved all-in on an A,K vs Cohlberg’s K,Q and looked like he was going to earn a lease on his tourney life, but it wasn’t meant to be. A Q landed on the board to send him to the rail.
Seidel played well too, and was only bounced when his pocket rockets got cracked by Carter King’s runner-runner flush.
Daniel Alaei built his field-leading stack at the expense of Bryan Devonshire. The two of them played for the biggest pot of the day, on an A,K vs A,Q match-up. At the end of it, Alaei’s superior kicker made all the difference, as both of them had hit a set of Aces on the flop.
Alaei then proceeded to lift another monster pot off Yegor Tsurikov. In that hand, Alaei hit a boat on the river to clinch the chip lead for the day.
Among the notable survivors John Juanda and Antonio Esfandiari hold relatively healthy stacks, and they’re both still very much in the poker tournament.
