He finished as the runner-up to Peter Vilandos in a $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event during the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) for $372,000. One year ago, he won a $3,000 No Limit Hold’em tournament during the World Poker Challenge in Reno for $131,000. Now, PocketFives.com member Andy BKiCe Seth (pictured at right) is in pursuit of his first World Poker Tour (WPT) title. Seth is the chip leader entering the final table of the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star event, holding a significant edge over the second place stack of decorated poker veteran Phil Hellmuth. Meanwhile, the online poker community is anxiously awaiting Seth appearing on television when the WPT Bay 101 event airs on Fox Sports Net.Seth has been at or near the top of the chip counts in the San Jose, California tournament for much of its duration. He has claimed a total of three bounties for $5,000 each, including back-to-back bust outs of J.C. Tran and Jerry Yang on Wednesday. On Thursday, his list of bounties grew even larger with the addition of Scotty Nguyen. One bounty remains in the $10,000 buy-in tournament, Hellmuth, who is a UB.com pro. Seth told the WPT Live Updates team about his play against “The Poker Brat” so far: “We’ve been going back and forth the last few days and have been at the same table for most of the time. We’ve been chatting it up and playing a lot of pots together.”
Seth was a one man wrecking crew to close play on Thursday as the field thinned from 27 players to six. Seth knocked out Lon Diamond on the final table bubble with pocket queens against A-Q after the board ran out five cards 10 or lower. Seth also sent Nguyen (pictured at left) to the rails in eighth place with K-Q against J-8 of hearts. Seth paired his queen on the flop, vaulting him into the lead for good and claiming his third Shooting Star bounty.
In PocketFiver on PocketFiver violence, Seth sent Brian tsarrast Rast (pictured at right) to the rails in ninth place. Rast moved all-in over the top of a raise by Seth, who called with A-10. Rast turned over A-7 and Seth immediately found a 10 on a 10-8-6 flop. Rast’s gutshot straight draw failed to hit and he was eliminated. The final knockouts came quickly after a marathon 15-hour play down day.
Joe pokerjoe9 Elpayaa (pictured at left) was sent packing in 15th place for $23,000. Elpayaa was all-in pre-flop with Q-9 and up against “Miami” John Cernuto’s A-4 of diamonds. Cernuto hit a four on the flop to preserve his lead in the hand and no help came for Elpayaa on the turn or river. Ousted in 18th place was Faraz The-Toilet Jaka, who ran A-10 of clubs into Nguyen’s A-J of hearts. Jaka had a flush draw by the river, but a deuce of diamonds gave Nguyen the victory. Jaka collected the same $23,000.
Jonathan driverseati Tamayo (pictured at right) fell with A-9 of diamonds against Hellmuth’s K-J of hearts in his final hand. Hellmuth flopped an open-ended straight draw and turned top pair to take down the pot and send Tamayo packing. Fellow PocketFives.com member and former WPT Player of the Year Jonathan FieryJustice Little was ousted in 22nd place after running a rivered Broadway straight into Hellmuth’s boat.After an adventurous day of play in the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star tournament, here’s how the chips lie:
1. Andy BKiCe Seth - 2,164,000
2. Phil Hellmuth - 1,433,000
3. Dan O'Brien - 1,129,000
4. Mclean pureprofitfour Karr - 1,112,000
5. Hasan Habib - 455,000
6. Matt Keikoan - 371,000
Members of the online poker community who have already finished in the money in the hallmark WPT event include:
9. Brian tsarrast Rast - $38,000
15. Joseph pokerjoe9 Elpayaa - $23,400
18. Faraz The-Toilet Jaka - $23,400
21. Jonathan driverseati Tamayo - $20,500
22. Jonathan FieryJustice Little - $20,500
28. Chris Fox Wallace - $17,600
35. Mohsin chicagocards1 Charania - $14,700
Play resumes at 4:00pm PT on Friday and will continue until a champion is determined. All players remaining are guaranteed to pocket at least $117,000 and a top prize of $878,000 is on the line. When play picks back up in Level 23, the blinds will be 8,000-16,000 with an ante of 2,000.
Stay tuned to PocketFives.com for the latest WPT coverage of online poker players.
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