Ship It To NC: Young Busts Two and Chino Rallies
by Court on 12.20.08, 12:04 am
After a slow and grinding level of 5 handed play the action has dropped to 3 handed all in one deal of the cards. Justin Young (left) was able to eliminate both the short stack Amnon Filippi and Steve Sung who started the day as the chip leader. All the chips went in preflop, with Amnon moving in for just under a million and Steve Sung calling. Justin Young then moved in over the top and Sung snap called with his pocket kings. Amnon had pocket nines and Young was in the catbird seat with pocket aces.
Sung’s all in call was worth over 3.5 million so add that to Amnon’s million chip all in and Young was able to grab a commanding portion of the chips in play after winning the three way all in. Young now has almost 12 million chips with under 22.5 million total chips in play.
Amnon was the short stack going into the hand so he ends up with the 5th place finish for $288,235 while Sung (right) is officially the 4th place finisher for $396,206.
After the bustouts Young is left as the chip leader with Evan McNiff and Chino Rheem hoping to overtake him in the battle for the title. Here is how they stacked up after the big 3 way hand:
Justin Young - 12 million
Evan McNiff - 6 million
Chino Rheem - 4.5 million
It wasn’t long before another all in brought out the red lights on the WPT stage as Chino and Evan tangled in a pot. Justin Young had opened the pot and after McNiff raised Chino moved all in and McNiff called. Chino got it in bad with his A9 against the AJ of McNiff but was able to hit a 9 on the turn to win the pot and double up to 7.5 million while leaving McNiff with only 500k chips and in critical shape.
A few hands later Chino was able to continue his run after sucking out on McNiff. A short stacked Evan was all in for the last of his chips and Chino called with the T
9 and turned out to be in great shape against the T
4 of McNiff. Rheem’s hand held and McNiff found himself out the door after being a dominating force in the tournament since the early days.
Evan McNiff (left) ends up in 3rd place for $540,440 but has to be left thinking about what could have been had Chino not hit his 3 outer.
While Evan is making his exit, Chino Rheem and Justin Young are preparing to play a heads up battle for the title and the $1.5 million first prize. Young has a chip lead going in, but Chino has closed the gap by eliminating McNiff. Young has 14 million to Chino’s 8 million.
