Home / Poker News May 2011 / WPT World Championship Event – Final Table Set
WPT World Championship Event – Final Table Set
Posted by: James Carter. - Fri, 2011-05-20 05:23
Only 15 players returned to the penultimate day of the WPT’s World Championship event. Galen Hall led the survivors into this significant portion of the final stretch and he was still sitting comfortably on top when the day was called. The other players who survived day 5 didn’t just sit around either though. Hall may have accumulated an impressive stack of 5 million+ chips, but he pretty much had second place man Scott Seiver breathing down his neck at the end of the day. Many of the heavy hitters made it to the 5th day of the event. Reigning champion David Williams was back too, albeit on a short-ish stack, which didn’t really give him a whole lot of room to maneuver.
His dreams of title defense went up in smoke when he was bounced in 14th, taking down a $53k reward for his efforts.
The hand in which he was eliminated was a truly remarkable one. Williams dropped all his chips into the middle after a preflop raise from Daniel Alaei and a call from Shannon Shorr. Both Alaei and Shorr called Williams’ all-in, to see a flop of A,9,5 all-club fall on the board. Both players checked the flop, as well as the turn (4s). The 10c fell on the river and Shorr made a small bet which pushed Alaei out of the way. Shorr then revealed a Q-high flush, which barely edged Williams’ J-high one, but was enough to send the champ to the rail.
Alaei didn’t get any chips out of this confrontation and he too faded away a little bit later in 11th place.
Sam El Sayed, one of the players who have held the chip lead at one point or another in the tournament was eliminated too, in 7th place. His elimination signaled the end of hostilities for the day, setting up the official 6-handed final table. Shorr had faded away in 9th place too by that stage.
