WPT Bellagio Cup V: Faraz Jaka Dominates Day 3

Two thirds of the 93 players who started Day 3 of the World Poker Tour Bellagio Cup V were eliminated in quick succession. The pace of play was relentless as many top pros including Phil Hellmuth, Erik Lindgren, and WPT Season VII Player of The Year Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier were knocked out of the competition. PokerStrategist Fabian fabstinho Quoss  and Team PokerStrategy.com member Daniel Allanon Drescher were also eliminated today.

Faraz Jaka was the man of the day on Day 3 as he ended the day with 3.21 million chips to take give him a commanding 2 million chip lead over his nearest rival. Anthony Spinella in second place goes into Day 4 with 1.25 million chips, while Ray Taylor leads the rest of the pack with 775,000 chips. The average chip count for the remaining players is just over half a million chips.

Faraz Jaka Runs Hot

Faraz "The-Toilet" Jaka had an amazing run throughout the day. His run really started when he cracked a pair of aces. After reraising the pot up to 40,000 from the cut-off, Jaka called a four bet of 101,000 from the small blind. The initial raiser folded. The flop came and the small blind bet 115,000 into the big pot.

The turn brought , and the small blind fired making it 150,000, Jaka again just called. came on the river and after thinking for some time the small blind put all his chips in the middle. Jaka immediately calls and shows for a flush, his opponent shows for a set of aces, but his tournament was over. That pot increased Jaka's stack to 1.8 million.

Jaka got lucky again as he made 2 pair with K6 against Javed Abraham's AK. They both made top pair and went all in on the flop, but the 6 on the turn sealed the deal for Jaka. Late in the day, Jaka made quads twice in a row to eliminate two opponents. In the first of the two hands, Jaka made quad kings to move up to 2.65 million chips. Immediately after a short break, Jaka made quad aces to eliminate David Levi in 34th place.

Jonathan Little Marches On

Meanwhile, Allanon did not have the best of days. He lost about half of his chips early on in  the day and never recovered. In the hand that sealed his elimination, he pushed all his remaining chips in with 9T. Unfortunately, Cornel Andre Cimpman was holding AA and the board was of no help to Allanon's hand.

With just 31 players left in the hunt, play on Day 4 will start with hand to hand play as the money bubble approaches. The top 27 finishers will take home at least $23,245, while the first place prize stands at $1,187,670.

Here are the top 10 players at the end of Day 3: