16 Jun 09

WSOP Event #30: Ross Boatman Leads Onto The Final Table

The final table has been set in the $2,500 Pot Limit Ohama Event. Ross Boatman will enter the final as chip leader and will begin the final day with a comfortable safety margin. He might need it, though, as he will have to survive both J.C. Tran and Theo Jorgensen in order to take the gold bracelet.

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It took the remaining players of the tournament about twelve hours to play down to the final table. Initially, it all started out like the previous day, where numerous participants became victims of the fast-paced tournament structure - including our Team PokerStrategy.com members Nazgul and Trader.

The second day started with a field of 61 players, and half of them were already sent to the rails before lunch break. In the end, Andy Bloch (pictured right) was the bubble boy when he had to take his leave on place 46, just short of the money.

Other big names - including Phil Ivey, Eli Elezra and Joe Beevers - had to join Bloch behind the rails moments later as they failed to build up their short stack and had to leave the tournament area.

As the final table approached, the play continuously turned more cautious. The pace significantly decreased and a lot of short stacks were patiently waiting for the right spot to put all their chips in with a premium hand. This strategy seemed to pay of for some of the players. Jean-Phillipe Leandri, for instance, was able to double up time and time again against the big stacks. In one of the situations, Theo Jorgensen raised to 40,000 from the cut-off and Leandri countered by shoving with his 154,000 remaining chips. He revealed as he was called by Jorgensen's - and his aces easily held up on the board.

In the end, Leif Force was the one to go out on 10th place and had to be satisfied with  a prize money of $17,488 as consolation. He pushed all-in from UTG with a mere 51,000 remaining chips and was called by Theo Jorgensen from middle position. Jeff Kimber however woke up with and re-raised pot-size to 228,000, which allowed him to push Jorgensen out of the hand and isolate the unlucky Force.  Even Force could now triple his stack, his wasn't good enough as the board came down and he had to take his leave.

Kimber meanwhile was able to increase his chip stack by another 100,000 chips and now is the most likely contestant to take on chip leader Ross Boatman. The play was halted after the final 9 players had been determined as we will return to an interesting final table tomorrow.

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