Ryan Price Leads The Final 27-Players

(Photo: Ryan Price)

After three-days of fun and frolics, the field had fallen from 230-players to just 27 at the WPT Emperors Palace Poker Classic. That means that everyone is now guaranteed at least $6,626, and the man they have to thank for that is our chip leader Ryan Price. It was a case of The Price is Right after his pocket fours survived the flip against the ace-king of Londt, on the bubble, to send everyone home in raptures.

Also through to the penultimate day are Dominik Nitsche, High Roller runner-up Ayaz Manji, British pro Jerome Bradpiece and the man who led the field for the entire day Wesley Weigand.

Here are the highlights of Day 2.

Players were dropping sticks of dynamite all over the place, but the first explosion happened at the table housing the High Roller runner-up, Ayaz Manji. It was a three way all-in AK v AK v the KK of Manji and after the smoke had cleared Manji emerged with the simple sentence, "I am the best." Best or not, Manji had 170,000 chips and he would put them to good use, finally ending the day on 415,000.

(Photo: Ayaz Manji)

Another player who likes to tell the world that he is the best is Lucien Cohen. The Frenchman put his chips into the middle in a match up against David Dadic. It was AJ v KK, the plastic rat was out and Cohen was screaming at the dealer: but to no avail. Cohen calmed down, wished everyone the very best of luck and left the tournament. Dadic would play the micro stack all day but eventually guaranteed himself a cash finishing with 71,000 chips.

Ryan Brauer and Ronit Chamani were two notables eliminated in the very first level and Gareth Kalil took out Darius Boer to move towards the top of the chip counts with 195,000. Kalil finished the day with 244,000 chips.

McLean Karr doubled up in level 12. Tyronne Sacks opened on the button with ace-seven, Karr shipped from the blinds holding pocket tens and he faded the ace to double to 45,000 chips. At the top of the counts Jason Strauss emerged as a strong contender and Wesley Weigand started to put some distance between him and the rest of the field.

It was a case of unlucky thirteen for Conrad Coetzer. The Macau cash game regular was sitting pretty with one of the chunkiest stacks in the field until he ran into Andrew Anthony. A pre flop raising war broke out between the aces of Anthony and the queens of Coetzer signifying a surprising end to Coetzer’s tournament. Anthony ended the day with 118,000 chips.

Joining Coetzer on the sidelines were two of the more commonly known players in the game. Firstly, we lost Liv Boeree when she ran her ace-queen into the ace-king of her opponent, and then we lost our WPT Champions Club member McLean Karr. Karr shipping his short stack into the middle with [Ah] [6h] and Neville Eber woke up with pocket sevens to end Karr’s hopes of a second title. Level 13 ended with 62-players and Wesley Weigand was still the chip leader.

(Photo: Liv Boeree)

Joe Cada was always going to become a story and so it was written in level 14. Cada had been nursing the short stack for the entirety of this tournament when he picked up two monster hands after the dinner break. In the first hand he doubled up to 120,000 with pocket kings, then he picked up pocket queens in the very next hand and was out five community cards later. It was that man Weigand who stopped Cada from getting his clutches on a 220k stack, when he five-bet bluff-shoved with pocket sixes and hit a six on the turn. Cada was out and Weigand was flying higher than that astronaut who tumbled from the sky last week.

Day 1B had numerous wonderful stories, but none of them were more interesting than the tale of Jason Hartman. In fact, it was a fairytale. The giant of a man qualified for this event through a free roll and proceeded to batter the competition on his birthday no less. Hartman’s competition came to a halt in level 15 when he moved all-in on a [As] [9s] [3d] flop holding [Ah] [Jh] only to run into Sunil Devachander and [Ac] [Ks]. Devachander moved up to 425,000 with that victory, but it was still Weigand leading at the end of level 15.

(Photo: Sunil Devachander)

Heading towards the dinner break we saw the contrasting fortunes of poker buddies Dominik Nitsche and Melanie Weisner. Nitsche eliminating a small host of players to move into second place in the chip counts, while Weisner ran ace-king into the pocket jacks of Menesh Keshev to end her dreams of winning two titles at one WPT, after her $1k side event win early in the week. As the players broke for dinner there were just 34-players remaining and Wesley Weignard was leading by a hairs breadth over Dominik Nitsche.

(Photo: Dominik Nitsche)

We managed to squeeze in one level and 20-minutes of the next before the action came to a close after the dinner break. In that time we saw Mike Robinson’s aces hold against the nut flush draw of Nahum Lum, Gary Citron triple up and eliminate Chris Convery, Rudolf Fourie eliminate Tyronne Sacks TT v 77, Jason Strauss remove JP Okes A6 v KQ, before we landed at the fastest bubble you could ever wish for.

Matt Savage didn’t even have time to stop the dealers so we could play hand for hand when Ryan Price and Jacques Londt were all-in. Londt was the short stack after being the third player in the triumvirate that saw Citron triple up and eliminate Chris Convery. Price held the lowly looking pocket fours and Londt ace-king. 25-players circled the table like vultures as the dealer laid the [9s] [2s] [2d] [Qs] [4d] on the table. Londt was out in 28th place and with that elimination Ryan Price overtook Wesley Weigand to finish the day as our chip leader with 753,000 chips.

(Photo: Wesley Weigand)

The penultimate day of the WPT Emperors Palace Poker Classic starts at the slightly earlier time of 12:00 (SAST), where we will play down to a final table of six-players. If you want to be there as well, then the best thing you can do is tune in to the live updates at WPT.com.