Straate, Matusow, and McGowan Out: Final Table Set
by Court on 12.18.08, 9:31 pm
After Justin Young opened a pot Mike Matusow came over the top all in. Young called when the action was back to him and Matusow saw that his AQ was in bad shape against Young’s AK. There was a queen on the flop for Mike, but a king came along with it so the situation didn’t change in Mike’s favor. Once the board ran out Mike was sent on his way to collect the 9th place payout of $100,880. Mike came up a couple spots short of making back to back World Poker Tour final tables, coming off his recent 6th place finish at the Foxwoods event in November.
With the elimination of Matusow, Justin Young had built his stack to around 3 million chips. A big hand between chip leader Evan McNiff and Steve Sung brought the two to about even at the top of the counts with around 4.5 million each. Sung had flopped quads on a Q-3-3 board and was able to get paid off on the river with a 1.5 million chip bet.
Ben Straate (right) had dropped back to just over a million in chips before getting all in against Steve Sung. Sung had pocket sixes and his hand was able to hold up against Straate’s AT to eliminate Ben in 8th place for $115,295 and leave the remaining players one elimination away from being done for the day and a seat at the televised WPT final table.
Before Straate’s was out of the room Joe McGowan was all in and Chino Rheem had called. Joe had pocket fours and was dominated by Chino’s pocket nines. The bigger pair held up to bust McGowan on the TV table bubble in 7th place for $165,735.
Here is the lineup going into the final table:
Steve Sung - 5,885,000
Evan McNiff - 4,805,000
Chino Rheem - 4,240,000
Amnon Filippi - 2,750,000
Justin Young - 2,410,000
Hoyt Corkins - 2,295,000
