As play wound down on the fourth day of play at the WPT Championship the number of players left in the tournament continued to drop at a steady pace.  Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis (pictured below left) had been near the top of the chip counts for most of the tournament, but 2 big pots took him [...]

In a flurry of eliminations after reaching the money the field quickly dropped from 50 players all the way down to 36.  At this stage of the tournament there is a complete redraw every time a table is broken and after drawing for new seats the final 36 are now spread across only 4 tables.
To [...]

With about 15 minutes left on the clock in the last level of the day play was paused and a random draw was held to see how many hands between one and eight each table would play to finish out the day. Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier pulled a seven so each table was slated to play [...]

After making the great call to win the last hand of the fourth level of the day things turned south for Phil “USCPhildo”Collins.  His nearly 600k chip stack to start the 4th level of the day was down to the felt in less than an hour of play at the 3k / 6k blind level.  [...]

Over half the players left in the field at the WPT Championship will make the money.  With 90 left and the top 50 making the money there are now more players that will make the money than won’t.  For the 40 that come up short getting close will be no consolation though.

Phil “USCPhildo” Collins (right) [...]