Day 3: The Fight For the Final Table

(Photo: Dominik Nitsche)

The front page of the WPT blog reads, ‘Shark Sighting in South Africa,’ in reference to Germany’s young poker superstar Dominik Nitsche. Despite his tender young age, Nitsche is still by far the most experienced of the final 27-players when it comes to major live tournaments. He burst onto the scene back in 2009 when he won the LAPT in Argentina at the tender age of just 18. Annual paychecks of six-figures have followed him ever since, but something different is going on in 2012. At the age of 21-years he was able to travel to the WSOP where he won his first bracelet, and followed that up with a side event victory at EPT San Remo just a few weeks ago. Nitsche is getting better and better, and it’s showing as he starts to close out. Just two days ago, after becoming the Day 1A chip leader, Nitsche told us how excited and proud he would be to close this one out. Well the shark is lying in second place and will never have a better chance to join the WPT Champions Club.

So Nitsche is a very good bet to make this final table, but who else is in contention? What others stories are lurking in the deep water alongside that of Nitsche the Shark? What about Ryan and Sascha Dreyer? Who we believe are the first married couple to ever cash at the same WPT event. Even more impressive was the fact that they both played on the same table for most of the afternoon, and evening, yesterday. We wonder who will be wearing the trousers if they end up in an all-in pre flop situation?

(Photo: The Dreyer Family)

Can Sunil Devachander make it to the final table? We had dinner with Devachander yesterday and he informed us that he doesn’t even play poker, and is only playing because the event is being held at the Emperors Palace, and he is a personal friend of one of the organizers.

(Photo: Sunil Devachander)

But the man with all of the chips is Ryan Price. Price who once qualified to appear in the Poker Million back in 2006 – which was shown all around the world on Sky Sports TV – has just one live cash to his name, which he secured in a WSOP $1,000 event back in 2009. Price starts the day with 753,000 chips and a lot of momentum. He will be hoping that the lull in action will not have changed that fact.

(Photo: Ryan Price)

But that’s enough of the talking; let’s bring on the action. Day 3 starts at the slightly earlier time of 12:00 (SAST) and we will be bringing you all of the action at WPT.com.