WSOP Event #57: Nazgul Battles Through Day 4

While neither Matt Damon nor Benn Affleck made it through the day, Matt
Affleck did more than well, securing himself the lead for the night
with 1,819,000 in chips. Ludovic "Cuts"
Lacay defended his second position on the leaderboard and will return
for Day 5 with a stack of 1,608,000. The same can not be said for
Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, as he lost the chip lead but still
will return for the next play day with a stack of 1,253,000, enough to
put him in 16th place. Phil Ivey is one place ahead of the French pro
with a stack of 1,276,000.

Besides many top pros, several team Pokestrategy.com members also made
it through the day. Christian "opti" Hech will
return for Day 5 with a solid stack of 830,000, Nasr
"hierkommtdiemaus" El Nasr with 668,000, Marco
"abiosex" Mattes with 236,000 and Felix
"lawdoc" Osterland with 161,000.

Nazgul (pictured left) started the day with 194,500 in chips, just below the average
stack of 225,000. With the blinds at 2,500/5,000 and 500 ante, a player
raised to 15,000 and Nazgul called with .
The flop came J-T-4 with one club and Nazgul check-called a 20,000 bet.
The turn brought a 9 to give Nazgul the straight and he check-raised
all-in after his opponent bet 55,000. Nazgul's opponent called and
tabled pocket rockets which propelled him to the rail, as Nazgul had
him covered.

Another interesting hand occurred when Nazgul thought the seven
deuce game was on at his table and couldn't resist the opportunity when
he was dealt . He opened for 14,000 and one player called. The flop came J-8-8 rainbow, action was checked to Nazgul and he checked behind. The turn came a K, his opponent checked, Nazgul bet 23,000 and his opponent called. The river brought a 3
and with the action checked to him again, Nazgul fired 36,000 into the
pot which was enough to force his opponent to fold. Nazgul tabled his and to his surprise nobody gave him the antes, as the seven deuce game was apparently not running.

In the very next hand, he got involved again in a big pot. UTG+2, who
was just at the table for one hand and saw Nazgul's seven deuce, opened
to 14,000. Nazgul made it 42,000 to go with the absolute pre-flop nuts,
pocket rockets. The original raiser called and they went to see a flop.
Flop came A-K-5
rainbow and the original pre-flop raiser led out into Nazgul for
55,000. Nazgul re-raised him again, this time up to 125,000 and his
opponent instantly re-shoved all-in for 388,000. Easy call to make and
the new player at table had to go right away as he had zero outs with A-K against Nazgul's pocket aces. Nazgul won a massive hand and was up to a little over 800,000.

Nazgul: "I ended the day with 840,000 which is almost twice
the average. I really feel good about that and I'm already looking
forward to get into action again tomorrow. The table I played was still
very soft. There was no famous or anyone very good at my table. I felt
I got good hands in key positions and managed to build a very nice
stack. If tomorrow goes as well as this, I'll be really happy, with
good cards I don't really care that I'm still sick."

Source: IMPDI for 2009 WSOP

Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier (pictured right) lost the
chip lead, but he did make it through the day, along with many more top
pros such as Theo Tran, Dan Harrington, Kenny Tran, Tom Schneider, Nick
Schulman and Dennis Phillips.

Not all pros were fortunate enough to continue their hunt for the Main
Event title. Greg Mueller, Hevad Khan, Chris Ferguson, Isaac Baron,
Paul Wasicka, Justin Bonomo and Phil Hellmuth were all sent to the rail
before the play was concluded for the day.

The "Caesar" himself, better known as PokerBrat,
almost made it through the day, but with his opponents constantly
taking stabs at his stack, even Hellmuth had to surrender the last of
his chips and make his exit.

Hellmuth took a devastating blow in a hand against Abraham Mourshaki
where he ran into Mourshaki's flopped set of jacks. Down to a short
stack, Hellmuth was in a great position to triple up close to the end
of the play, but his pocket aces were unfortunately cracked.

Mourshaki raised to 22,000, Hellmuth just called and so did three
players behind him, Jose Manuel Gomez Rebenaque, Kenny Hsiung and Kevin
Jenkins. The flop came 
and Jenkins moved all-in for 83,000, Mourshaki folded, Hellmuth
re-raised all-in for his last 110,000, Gomez folded and Hsiung called.

Jenkins tabled , Hellmuth and Hsiung . The turn brought and the river came , thus the main pot went to Jenkins, the side pot to Hsiung and Hellmuth was left with no more chips to play with.

Here are the top 10 chip stacks after Day 4:

World Series Of Poker Main Event Day 4 Standings
Rank	Name	Chips
1st	Matt Affleck	1,819,000
2nd	Ludovic Lacay	1,608,000
3rd	Tom Lutz	1,600,000
4th	James Akenhead	1,572,000
5th	Elias Charlie	1,540,000
6th	Miika Puumalainen	1,492,000
7th	Jordan Morgan	1.489,000
8th	Bernhard Perner	1,426,,000
9th	Blair Hinkle	1,399,,000
10th	Benjamin Jensen	1,394,000