The 2008 WPT Festa al Lago Main Event at the Bellagio in Las Vegas enters Day 5 today with a total of four PocketFivers competing for the $1.4 million first place prize. At the top of the pack is 2008 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure champion Bertrand ElkY Grospellier (pictured) of France, who will have over 2 million chips when Day 5 action begins later today. "Elky" has been one of the highest volume internet players in the world for the past few years, and has had quite a bit of success in poker tournaments despite being mainly a cash game player.

PocketFivesLive Chief Reporter Courtney Harrington spoke about Bertrand's chip lead in the Festa al Lago Main Event: "Going into the playdown day with the chip lead, only 12 players left and 6 making it to the TV final table puts Grospellier in a great spot to take advantage of whatever the table gives him today. Whether the situation is right to sit back and wait or get in there and pick up a lot of chips he is in a position to take advantage." His online tournament scores include three cashes in the recent World Championship of Online Poker on Stars, including $23k for a deep run in the WCOOP Main Event. His PCA victory earlier this year in the Bahamas was worth approximately $2,000,000!

PocketFiver JoeSebok is fifth in chips with nearly 1.5 million, and will look to regain the live tournament momentum he achieved in 2006 when he won a preliminary NLHE event in this Festa al Lago series for $267k. Regarded by many to be one of the toughest live tournament poker players in the world, Joe also has prelim event victories in the L.A. Poker Classic and Mirage Poker Showdown on his live resume.

Andrew Good2cu Robl will enter Day 5 with approximately 1.1 million chips; looking to add to his live tournament success earlier this year when he took 3rd place in the WSOP $5k Mixed Holdem event for $144k. Adam Roothlus Levy is by far the most popular PocketFives forum poster left in the mix as he will be looking to chip-up from 570k chips with the blinds at 12k/24k with 3k ante. Adam recently signed with UltimateBet and had a deep run in this year's WSOP Main Event in which he cashed for $135,000 in 48th place.

Adam Roothlus Levy (pictured) is currently ranked #74 in the world at online tournament play according to the P5s Rankings and has put up impressive results over the last three months. In July, he took 3rd in the PokerStars $1k Super Tuesday for $54k and followed that up with a win in the $200 Sunday rebuy for $51,250 a month later. In September, he final tabled the WCOOP $500 rebuy event for another $37,800. "Adam battled with the short stack for most of the day on Day 4, and could be due for a run to start the playdown day today. He still has enough chips to work with and do some damage, and just two double ups could take him from last to first in the chip counts," said P5s Live Chief Reporter Courtney Harrington.

Adam wrote a PocketFives blog entry leading up to the WSOP earlier this year that can be found here. In 2006, he wrote two articles for PocketFives: Lather. Rinse. Repeat. and Countdown to Takeoff. Roothlus is a veteran Poker Discussion forum poster who is certain to have many P5ers from around the world wishing him good luck once play begins later today.

Following are the Day 5 seating assignments with 12 players remaining:

Table #1

Seat 1: Adam Roothlus Levy
Seat 2: Nenad Medic
Seat 3: Bertrand ElkY Grospellier
Seat 4: Will Mietz
Seat 5: Jimmy Tran
Seat 6: Nam Le

Table #2

Seat 1: JoeSebok
Seat 2: Michael DeMichele
Seat 3: Mike Wattel
Seat 4: Andrew Good2cu Robl
Seat 5: Osmin Dardon
Seat 6: Olav Von Sachsen

PocketFivers who have cashed in the 2008 WPT Festa al Lago Main Event are:

13th: Ryan toetagu Fair (ranked #42) -- $53,290
14th: Johan busto_soon van Til (ranked #25) -- $53,290
16th: Justin ZeeJustin Bonomo -- $42,630
17th: Jamie thecronic420 Rosen -- $42,630
18th: Bryan badbeatninja Devonshire -- $42,630
19th: Scott BigRiskky Clements -- $42,630
21st: Isaac mr. menlo Baron -- $37,302
26th: Joe ender555 Ebanks (ranked #6) -- $31,975
32nd: Blake Balla-B13 Cahail -- $26,645
35th: Matt All In at 420 Stout -- $26,645

Payouts for the remaining 12 spots in the 2008 Festa al Lago Main Event are as follows:

1st - $1,411,015
2nd - $943,215
3rd - $506,245
4th - $373,010
5th - $266,445
6th - $186,510
7th - $133,225
8th - $106,580
9th - $85,260
10th - $63,945
11th - $53,290
12th - $53,290



Best of luck to PocketFives.com members in the Festa al Lago Main Event!

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