WSOP Updates �C Event #41, $1,000 Seniors NLHE �� Bennett, Lewis, Smith Lead Way as Final Table Set
Tuesday's action in Event #41, $1000 Seniors No Limit Hold 'Em, began fast �� nearly half of the field of 121 were eliminated in the first two hours of play �� but ended on a more restrained note. Ernest Bennett will lead the final table on Wednesday, with 1,062,000 chips, ahead of Leon Lewis and Ed Smith, his closest challengers, as they chase the $348,423 in first-place money.
The biggest name on the Day One leader board went out surprisingly fast on Day Two. Despite starting the day in seventh, 1972 WSOP Main Event winner Amarillo Slim Preston ran into Hassan Kameoi's pocket aces early on and busted in 96th place ($2,655). Kameoi then hit a one-outer to dispatch '83 ME champion Tom McEvoy. With the money in pre-flop, Kameoi showed pocket tens to McEvoy's kings, and the Q?7?4? flop all but sealed it, as one of McEvoy's kings was the K?. The turn, though was the only card that could put Kameoi ahead, the 10?, and the A? river sealed McEvoy's tough-luck departure (34th, $8,820). The third ME winner in the field, Brad Daugherty (1991), lasted a few more hands until Ken Uchima started with pocket sevens and made quads, crushing Daugherty's K-Q; he was eliminated in 29th place, collecting $8,820.
Day One leader Terry Fleischer also departed early, finishing in 41st place with $7,450. Tom 'The Shamrock Kid' McCormick, a strong second at day's start, departed even earlier when his pocket kings were cracked by David Icke's pocket queens. Icke, though, found queens fickle, when he held A?K? in a race against Jack 'The Staten Island Snake' Deutsch's pocket queens. The Q?J?4? flop gave Deutsch the set but left Icke the thin draw to the Broadway straight, which came in when the 10? arrived on the turn. The river, though, delivered the 10? for the redraw boat, prompting an exuberant Deutsch to bellow, "Welcome to the (expletive) snake pit!" as the chips came his way. Icke was eliminated when Leon Lewis spiked a queen on the river to match his A-Q and Icke's A-K couldn't hold up. He took 14th place for $13,787.
Deutsch returned to his rally cry, "Let me hear from the snake pit!" a few hands later when his pocket aces were up against Catazaro's K? Q? and Jack Maresca's J? 10? on a board of 2? 7? 5? 9?. Catazaro's flush draw and Maresca's gutshot straight both missed when the river came 7?, and Deutsch had every reason to believe in the power of his 'snake pit' as he raked in the chips, using them to reach today's final, though he'll be there short-stacked, in eighth place.
Charles Anderson will also be working from the back of the pack on Wednesday, despite good fortune that let him reach the final table. Anderson went all in on A-K against Ed Smith's pocket sevens, and the flop and turn of 9-J-J-8 kept Smith ahead. The eight on the river, though, counterfeited Smith's smaller pair and made Anderson's ace kicker play. Smith, though, arrives at the final table with a healthy third-place stack.
Tony Korfman was responsible for ousting 11th-place finisher Marvin DeVore after Korfman went on a late-night run that moved him to fourth overall. Korfman's A-Q topped DeVore's last stand with Q-5.
Chip leader Bennett bolstered his stack even more in the last hand of the day against Kameoi. From the small blind, Kameoi went all in on A?9?. Bennett called with A?8? and was dominated, but the K?8?5? flop paired Bennett's eight, and the turn 4? and the river 2? offered no rescue for Kameoi, sending him to the rail in 10th place with $15,499. This set the final table, which, with seating assignments and chip counts, looks like this:
Seat 1: Jack Deutsch �� 133,000
Seat 2: Leon Lewis �� 841,000
Seat 3: Charles Anderson �� 104,000
Seat 4: Ed Smith �� 520,000
Seat 5: Ray Abels �� 151,000
Seat 6: Ernest Bennett �� 1,062,000
Seat 7: Rod Clarida �� 174,000
Seat 8: Tony Korfman �� 412,000
Seat 9: Thomas Catanzaro �� 278,000
Play resumes at 2pm PDT. Visit PokerNews.com's 'Live Reporting' of Event #41, $1,000 Seniors No Limit Hold 'Em for the latest reports.
