The Poker Lab Rat

It took 14 hours today as the organisers wanted to cut the field to 36 players, and that did not happen until 2am when Ayaz Mahmood busted out in 37th place.

David Tran takes over at the top of the leaderboard with an impressive haul of just over 10m chips - but overall it was a day when previously featured players busted out - nearly all the same way by ignoring the basic premise that while AK is a good starting hand … it’s still only a DRAWING hand.

Let’s start with “Super” Dario Minieri who busted out early, trying a few internet poker tricks and really mixing it up, but he pushed into a flopped set of 3’s from Reagan Silber and then tried to river rat a flush, failed and was out in 96th place ($67K)

Gus Hansen also finally ran into trouble with his aggressive style, calling a big all-in pre-flop with AK against Ryan Elsons JJ. No improvement and Hansen was effectively crippled finishing in 61st for $154K.

Humberto Brenes also fell going too hard with “Big Slick” going all-in with AKh and getting called by the pocket Aces of Hevad Khan. The flop gave Brenes hope with a K, but all cards were spades, and a 10s on the river gave Khan a winning flush with his As.

Also going out were yesterday’s leader Dag Martin Mikkelsen who had (you guessed it) AK, re-raising all-in pre-flop and getting called by David Tran’s pocket Aces. End of tournament Dag. 42nd place and $237K.

So for all poker readers out there of all experience - we’ve just seen three top players who were involved deep in the biggest tournament of their lives who ALL over-valued AK and busted out. Lesson learned? I hope so.

Now just 36 players remain - including 1998 WSOP champion Scotty Nguyen on 1.9m in chips - and they’ll do all all again tomorrow. How many will Big Slick claim ?

The official top ten in chips entering Day Six play:
David Tran ——- 10,280,000
Philip Hilm —— 9,950,000
Ray Henson —-— 8,250,000
Hevad Khan —-— 7,585,000
Kevin Farry —— 7,400,000
Scott Freeman  7,360,000
Lee Childs ——- 6,520,000
Jerry Yang ——- 5,090,000
Kenny Tran ——- 4,955,000
William Spadea 4,575,000