Esfandiari Still Tops, Racener Second at WPT Five Diamond
Just 15 player are left after Day 4 and Antonio Esfandiari managed to hand on to his chip lead for the third day. It was John Racener however, who stole the show, as the November Niner raced up the leaderboard to finish second.
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| Picture Source: wikipedia |
With just 15 players left in the hunt, the remaining players can almost smell the $870,124 that awaits them if they manage to end up as the last player standing. All of them are already guaranteed $42,231 for coming this far, and they will be returning on Day 5 to compete for a seat at the final table.
A quick glance at the list of the remaining players in the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic will give you a good idea of just how strong a field turned up for this event. Besides Racener (pictured right) and Esfandiari, the others who are still in the hunt include Andrew Robl, Andrew Lichtenberger, Vanessa Rousso and Sorel Mizzi.
Racener from 137k to 1.9 million
Antonio Esfandiari's outstanding run showed no signs of abating, as he managed to keep his fellow sharks at bay and hang on to the chip lead. He is in excellent position to make a run for the title with his 2.68 million chips, almost 40% more than second placed John Racener.
Racener who finished 2nd in the recently concluded WSOP 2010 Main Event started Day 4 as one of the shortest stacks left among the 54 man field, but put in an outstanding performance to finish in second place, after increasing his stack by almost 14 times in just one day. You can hear him talk about his day in an interview, below.
While Racener was busy racking up chips, several other big names saw their hopes of a big payday vanish on Day 4. Doug Lee who started the day in 2nd place busted 17th for $33,785. Doyle Brunson was 18th ($33,785), Freddy Deeb was 24th ($25,339), while our very own MTT video producer jonathanlittle finished 38th for $21,116.
Here are the chip counts of the 15 remaining players:
| WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic Day 4 Chip Counts |
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| Place | Name | Chips |
| 1st | Antonio Esfandiari | 2,680,000 |
| 2nd | John Racener | 1,900,000 |
| 3rd | Andrew Robl | 1,750,000 |
| 4th | Kia Mohajeri | 1,694,000 |
| 5th | Kirk Morrison | 1,545,000 |
| 6th | Luis Velador | 1,423,000 |
| 7th | Sorel Mizzi | 1,380,000 |
| 8th | Ray Dehkharghani | 1,148,000 |
| 9th | Andrew Lichtenberger | 915,000 |
| 10th | Vanessa Rousso | 888,000 |
| 11th | Chris DeMaci | 801,000 |
| 12th | Amit Makhija | 756,000 |
| 13th | Ted Lawson | 400,000 |
| 14th | Danny Fuhs | 247,000 |
| 15th | Charles Caris | 125,000 |
| Level info | |
| Blinds | 10,000 / 20,000 |
| Ante | 3,000 |
| Player info | |
| Remaining players | 15 (439) |
| Average Chip Count | 1,168,000 |
| Interview with John Racener by WPT.com |
