Up for grabs tomorrow: a $2 million first-place prize, a $1.2 million runner-up prize and the prestige that comes with outlasting one of the toughest fields in poker.
Jaka Rises Again
For Jaka, the Day 4 chip leader who came in to the day with a commanding advantage, things had begun to look dire about the middle of the day when his massive 4.1 million chip stack had dwindled to just over 1.5 million.
He managed to turn things around again though, shaking off running A-K into KK and using relentless aggression to get back on top by the end of the day.
Jaka bagged up 6.47 million in chips and will head into the final table again in the chip lead, although this time just barely.
Still, with over $4.7 million in career earnings live and online Jaka is a heavy favorite to take home the gold.
Julius and Liu Just A Blind Behind
Starting his day with 1.8 million in chips, well behind Jaka, Kyle Julius used a couple of big hands mixed with a slow and steady climb to bag up 6.45 million to end the day, good for second place.
Known as KJulius10 online, Julius has over $1 million in online earnings and a top live cash of $65k that he’s now guaranteed to beat.
Liu, one of the hottest female players on the circuit over the last year with over $500k in earnings, started the day with just over 1 million but finished with 6.35 million to sit third.
Dutch pro Ruben Visser, a strong player who hovered in or around the top stacks for most of the last few days, finished the day in fourth and will return for the final table with 4.4 million in chips.
Coming in fifth in chips is John Dibella, who ended play for the night and sent Lee Goldman home on the bubble in a brutal hand.
Getting it in good with kings to Dibella’s nines, the crushing two-outer came on the river to give Dibella a set and send Goldman to the rail in ninth for $101,000.
Dibella will start the final table with 3.46 million.
Down But Not Out
The bottom three players to make the final eight will definitely have the tougher road to climb tomorrow with none sitting above 2 million in chips.
Sixth is David Bernstein (1.96 million), seventh is Mark Drover (1.43 million) and eighth is Anthony Gregg, a former runner-up in this event, who will start with 1.1 million.
All eight remaining players are now guaranteed at least $156,400.
Bustees
Notable pros from the final 24 who busted prior to the final table were Martin Jacobsen (10th – 101,000), Phil “takechip” D’Auteuil (11th - $85,000), Alex “assassinato” Fitzgerald (14th - $70,000), Sam Greenwood (15th - $58,000) and David Peters (22nd - $52,000)
The final eight will return tomorrow at 1 pm (EST) to play down for the $2 million. Action will be streamed almost-live on a 40-minute delay at PokerStars.tv.
Here are their chip stacks and seat assignments:
Seat 1 Mark Drover 1,430,000 Seat 2 Anthony Gregg 1,160,00 Seat 3 David Bernstein 1,960,000 Seat 4 Ruben Visser 4,400,000 Seat 5 Faraz Jaka 6,470,000 Seat 6 John Dibella 3,465,000 Seat 7 Xuan Liu 6,355,000 Seat 8 Kyle Julius 6,450,000Visit www.pokerlistings.com