The action is heating up in a big way at the World Poker Tour Five Diamond tournament, currently being held in Las Vegas at the Bellagio. The tournament, which began with 391 players, includes some of the biggest names in professional poker, such as Scotty Nguyen, Barry Greenstein, Freddy Deeb, Erik Seidel, Jason Mercier, Vanessa Rousso, Chau Giang, Phil Ivey and Antonio Esfandiari. The winner of the tournament will receive $870,124, while the remainder of the $4,248,600 prize pool is scheduled to be distributed among the other top 100 players.
WPT Five Diamond is one of the biggest poker tournaments of the year, despite the fact that the entry fee has dropped to $10,000 from last year’s $15,000 buy-in. Several famous poker pros had already been eliminated before Friday’s conclusion, such as Frank Kasella, Joe Sebok and Scott Seiver. Ryan D’Angelo, who was a finalist at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure 2010 tournament, was the overall chip leader when the tables closed on Friday evening.
By the end of Saturday, the ranks of the WPT Five Diamond reduced to just 137 players. Antonio Esfandiari closed out the night on top, touting a total chip count of 485,600. Daniel Fuhs maintained a distant second at 397,500. Poker pros such as Doyle Brunson, Vanesso Rousso, Sorel Mizzi and Faraz Jaka kept in the runnings at this point as well.
Sunday was host to some of the most brutal action of the tournament, with all but 54 of the competitors eliminated. Favorites such as Johnny Chan, Phil Ivey, Jason Mercier and Isaac Baron ended in the money but failed to move on to Monday. Esfandiari extended his chip lead to nearly 300,000 over second place, now held by Doug Lee with 702,500 chips. Veteran Doyle Brunson continues to hold strong at 13th. The tournament winner will be declared on Wednesday, which ironically coincides with Esfandiari’s birthday.
As of now, the leaderboard looks like this:
10: Kianoosh Mohajeri – 452,000 chips
9: Bryn Kenney – 458,000
8. Charles Caris – 512,000
7. Ray Dehkharghani – 522,000
6. Jerry Young – 550,000
5. Nicholas Phillips – 559,000
4. Freddy Deeb – 654,000
3. Vanessa Rousso – 694,000
2. Doug Lee – 702,500
1. Antonio Esfandiari – 1,082,500
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