The fifth day of play at the Foxwoods World Poker Finals could be a short one.  The number of remaining players was reduced to only 10 by the completion of last nights action and today the final 10 are back to play down to the televised final table number of 6 players.

Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little, Mike Matusow, and David Pham are the most experienced at the table and all three started the day with over a million in chips.  The play from 10 to 6 can be excruciating though, as everyone tries to avoid the TV bubble while at the same time accumulating enough chips to have the best chance possible once they do make it to the TV final table.

The first level of action started slow, other than one Jon Jaffe 4 bet preflop that ended up doubling Dimitri Haskaris.  After Jack Schanbacher opened and Anthony Newman raised, Jaffe put in another raise preflop and then Haskaris woke up with aces behind all the action and moved all in .  It folded to Jaffe who called the tiny additional amount and when the hands were turned up Jaffe was caught with his hand in the cookie jar, showing the T-4 offsuit.  The aces held up and Haskaris was able to double up.

After Jaffe broke the ice and got things rolling, Haskaris was able to continue his positive trend by busting Tom Nguyen in 10th place and creating a little more elbow room at the table for the other 9 players.  Nguyen ended up all in on the turn with top pair and a flush draw, but Haskaris had a made straight to go with his lower flush draw in the same suit, killing a couple of Tom’s outs.  The river didn’t complete the flush and Nguyen found his day end in disappointment with him being the first out in 10th place for $36,826.

Haskaris on the other hand has rushed to the chiplead with over 2 million.  He came into the day near the bottom of the chip counts with less than a million chips, but a big double up through Jaffe and then eliminating Nguyen have him headed in the right direction and leading the way with 9 players left.

• November 10, 2008 -- Little Busts Newman, Final Table Set
• November 10, 2008 -- Jaffe Doing the Dirty Work
• November 11, 2008 -- Little Busts Matusow in 6th, Schanbacher 5th
• November 11, 2008 -- Double Em Up