Day 4 of the World Poker Tour World Championship came to a close on Tuesday night after five levels of play. The field has been chopped to just 15 players and leading the way is PokerStars Caribbean Adventure champion Galen Hall with 3.438 million in chips. He is the only player above 3 million while former WPT champion Sam El Sayed sits in second place with 2.774 million.
With only 27 places being paid out and 52 players returning for Day 4, about half wouldn’t make the money. When the day began, plenty of big names still remained including Billy Baxter, 2009 WPT World Championship winner Yevgeniy Timoshenko, current WPT Player of the Year front-runner Andy Frankenberger, 2008 WPT World Championship winner David Chiu, Justin Smith and Andrew Lichtenberger. All of them fell short of cashing, but the worst of it went to Hafiz Khan, who bubbled the prestigious event.
According to the WPT Live Update Team, Khan was all-in preflop holding the best possible hand he could: two aces. Justin Young held pocket jacks. Although Khan went in with the best of it and in a dominating position to double up, a jack on the turn ended the tournament for him just one spot away from the money.
Once the bubble burst, it was a who’s who of poker lining up at the payout desk. Kenny Tran went out in 26th place, Doyle Brunson in 24th, Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott in 22nd, Haralabos Voulgaris in 21st, Abe Mosseri in 19th and Christian Harder in 17th, to name just a few.
Hall takes his chip lead into the final table thanks in large part to the final hand of the night in which he sent Harder to the rail. Nenad Medic opened with a raise to 55,000 and Harder flat-called behind. Hall was in the big blind and when action moved to him, he three-bet to 188,000. Medic folded and then Harder reraised all in for roughly 800,000. Hall snap-called and tabled 
. Harder turned over 
. The flop, turn and river ran out 
and Hall scooped the biscuits into his basket.
Going into Day 5, two players out of the final 15 are still in contention to take the Player of the Year title from Frankenberger, who currently sits in the driver seat with 2,100 points. Both El Sayed and Shannon Shorr hold 1,200 points and can tie Frankenberger with a fifth-place finish. If they go past the final five, whoever goes the furthest will win Player of the Year.
Another amazing story going into Day 5 is that defending champion David Williams is still alive, albeit last in chips with only 318,000. He’ll begin the day with 13.25 big blinds on Wednesday — and anything can happen. One thing is for sure: Williams can’t successfully defend his title unless he makes the televised final table, which will be his goal on Day 5. No player has ever won two WPT World Championships, let alone successfully defended his title. Williams could make poker history if he is able to complete the task.
Some of the other notables still remaining are Scott Seiver, Steven Kelly, Ashton Griffin, Freddy Bonyadi, Daniel Alaei and Will “The Thrill” Failla.
Day 5 Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Galen Hall | 3,436,000 |
| 2 | Sam El Sayed | 2,774,000 |
| 3 | Roger Teska | 2,194,000 |
| 4 | Scott Seiver | 2,001,000 |
| 5 | Shannon Shorr | 1,786,000 |
| 6 | Steven Kelly | 1,674,000 |
| 7 | Tony Gargano | 1,577,000 |
| 8 | Ashton Griffin | 1,474,000 |
| – | AVERAGE | 1,466,666 |
| 9 | Nenad Medic | 1,282,000 |
| 10 | Justin Young | 1,249,000 |
| 11 | Freddy Bonyadi | 700,000 |
| 12 | David Peters | 633,000 |
| 13 | Daniel Alaei | 530,000 |
| 14 | Will “The Thrill” Failla | 393,000 |
| 15 | David Williams | 318,000 |
Day 5 will continue at 1200 PDT (1900 GMT) on Wednesday. You can be sure to check back here on PokerNews for the recap of the day’s play after its conclusion.
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