Faraz The-ToiletJaka has been on a tear during the current season of the World Poker Tour (WPT). Jaka finished as the runner-up to Alexandre Allingomes Gomes in the Bellagio Cup V in July. Four months later, he was back at a WPT final table, this time finishing third in the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic. At the Bay 101 Shooting Star event, Jaka made a deep run and finished 18th. All told, he has nearly $1.4 million in career WPT earnings and with a win in this week’s $25,000 Championship event, Jaka could double that total.

Jaka sits atop the leaderboard entering Day 5 and holds a stack of 3.12 million chips, 30% more than David Benyamine‘s second place tally of 2.35 million. He was involved in one of the most talked-about hands of the 2010 WPT Championship on Wednesday. In it, Heather Sue Mercer raised to 40,000 pre-flop, or 2.5 times the big blind, and Jaka made it 110,000. Mercer raised to 300,000 and Jaka, noticing that Mercer had been 4betting a lot, shoved all-in. Mercer quickly called all-in for her tournament life.
When the cards were revealed, Mercer had the goods with pocket aces. Jaka turned over just 9-3, but hit lightning in a bottle when the flop came 9-8-3. A running 5-10 didn’t change the status quo and Mercer was sent to the rails on the money bubble in 21st place. It took all of a few minutes for UB.compro Phil Hellmuth to realize what had happened. Then, the following exchange ensued, as quoted from the WPT’s website: “Phil Hellmuth has also wandered over to see what happened and the table fills him in on the action. ‘Come over to my table Faraz,’ Hellmuth says with a big smile. ‘I'm coming,’ Jaka responds. ‘I'll do you dirtier. I'll have 3-8.'”

The top 18 players finished in the money. Also booted on the bubble was Todd tbt4653 Terry (pictured at left), who pushed his chips into the center with A-10 and ran into Benyamine’s pocket queens. The board ran out K-5-4-8-2 and Terry was sent to the rails empty-handed. Terry took third in August’s WPT Legends of Poker and lodged a seventh place showing in the first ever Hollywood Poker Open last month.

Seven-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Billy Baxter eliminated PocketFives.com member Randal RandALLinFlowers in 23rd place. In his final hand, Flowers ran pocket nines into Baxter’s pocket kings. Flowers found some help on the flop, which came J-8-7, but no nine or ten hit on the turn or river. Flowers won a $5,000 preliminary event during the Five Star World Poker Classic at the Bellagio last week for $166,000, besting a final nine that included Justin ZeeJustinBonomo, Eric basebaldyBaldwin, and Andrew luckychewyLichtenberger.

Matt All In At 420Stout (pictured at right) survived to see Day 5 and eliminated bracelet winner Brian ship_the_perc Lemke along the way. Lemke ran pocket kings into pocket aces and Stout hit a set on the flop to add insult to injury. Stout finished Day 4 holding the second shortest stack in the room at 274,000, or just over 13 big blinds. Here’s a look at the 18 players remaining in the 2010 WPT Championship. When play resumes, the blinds will be 10,000-20,000 with an ante of 3,000:

1. Faraz The-Toilet Jaka – 3,117,000
2. David Benyamine – 2,350,000
3. David Williams – 2,072,000
4. Billy Baxter – 1,630,000
5. Nikolay Evdakov – 1,426,000
6. Phil Hellmuth – 1,377,000
7. Shawn Buchanan – 1,224,000
8. Olivier livb112 Busquet – 1,088,000
9. Scotty Nguyen – 941,000
10. Eric basebaldy Baldwin – 880,000
11. J.J. Liu – 674,000
12. Robert Cooper – 662,000
13. John O’Shea – 495,000
14. Cliff JohnnyBax Josephy – 458,000
15. Jason Lester – 421,000
16. Josh Arieh – 303,000
17. Matt All In At 420 Stout – 274,000
18. Tony Cousineau – 60,000

The action will resume at Noon PT on Thursday and continue until a ten-handed table is determined. Then, the final ten will play down to six on Friday. The top two finishers will pocket more than $1 million and every player still alive is guaranteed to take home at least $47,000. Stay tuned to PocketFives.com for the latest WPT coverage of online poker players.