WPT Foxwoods Final Table Begins About 4:00 pm ET

Level 23: 20,000-40,000, 4,000 ante

The WPT stage is still being prepared for tonight's final table, so the cards might be delayed a bit. Action should be underway by 4:15 pm ET or so.

If you're waiting for the WSOP to start airing tonight on ESPN, you can spend some time with us as six players battle to become the next World Poker Tour champion.

We'll be providing complete hand-for-hand coverage with chip counts all night until a winner is crowned.

WPT Bio: Matt Stout

Level 23: 20,000-40,000, 4,000 ante

Seat 6
Matt Stout
1,579,000 (3^rd in chips)

Though this is his first career WPT final table, Matt "All In At 420" Stout is no stranger to the tour. He's played in 18 WPT events, most recently the Festa al Lago tournament where he finished in 13^th place and has more than $675,000 in live tournament winnings to their credit including a 3^rd place finish at the WSOP Circuit Main Event in Tunica earlier this year.

Stout is also an accomplished online poker pro with nearly $2 million dollars in career online tournament earnings. The New Jersey native's girlfriend, Aimee, also plays online and has $25,000 in earnings of her own under the handle "AllInAt420sGirl."

When asked his thoughts on the final table, Stout admitted that he has never played for this much money in his life, despite his extensive list of online and live results.

Biggest Live Tournament Cash: $73,590
Career Earnings in Live Tournaments: $676,374

WPT Bio: Soheil Shamseddin

Level 23: 20,000-40,000, 4,000 ante

Seat 5
Soheil Shamseddin
2,945,000 (2^nd in chips)

Professional poker player Soheil Shamseddin is making his second WPT final table appearance, following up his 3^rd place showing at the Southern Poker Championships back in January.

For the past 18 months Shamseddin has consistently posted results in tournaments across the country, racking up five wins, 16 final tables and career winnings in excess of $1 million. He has three WSOP final tables and he also won two different $2,500 no-limit hold'em events at the 2008 Bellagio Festa al Lago and picked up a third Festa al Lago preliminary event victory with a win in a $1,500 no-limit hold'em event last month.

Shamseddin has been a force to be reckoned with here at Foxwoods. He vaulted to the top of the chip counts late on Day 1 and stayed there for the remainder of the tournament as he eliminated a host of players including Joe Serock, Jason Mercier and Tom Dobrilovic in the monster pot where Shamseddin's pocket nines cracked Dobrilovic's kings and Matt Stout's aces to claim the chip lead with nine players remaining.

During play today, Shamseddin told the other players that he is incapable of going on tilt.  While that may be an unbelievable statement for most players, it seems like the truth when it comes to Shamseddin.  He almost always has a big grin on his face and has a reputation for both taking and giving his beats in stride.

Biggest Live Tournament Cash: $263,725
Career Earnings in Live Tournaments: $1,041,466
 

WPT Bio: Cornel Andrew Cimpan

Level 23: 20,000-40,000, 4,000 ante

Seat 4
Cornel Andrew Cimpan
3,691,000 (1^st in chips)

A 37-year-old from Romania, Cornel Andrew Cimpan is a former salesman who has been playing professional poker for about five years. He is married with a son and a daughter.

Prior to winning Season VII's LA Poker Classic, Cimpan had $163,000 in career earnings, most of which came at smaller buy-in events at the Commerce and Bicycle Casinos. The 2009 LAPC was a breakout moment for Cimpan, who final tabled two preliminary events before taking down the LAPC Main Event to the tune of $1.6 million. The victory launched the Texas resident into the national poker spotlight and, since then, Cimpan has continued to post impressive result including a WSOP final table in 2009 in addition to his final table appearance here at Foxwoods.

The current chip leader has a reputation for aggressive and often unpredictable play, like his memorable river bluff with ten high against Chris "Jesus" Ferguson in the late stages of the LAPC event. After successfully running the bluff, Cimpan played to the crowd by showing them his cards first, then laying them on the table with an enthusiastic, "Ten high, baby!"

Biggest Live Tournament Cash: $1,661,260
Career Earnings in Live Tournaments: $1,912,238

WPT Bio: Eric Froehlich

Level 23: 20,000-40,000, 4,000 ante

Seat 3
Eric Froehlich
1,014,000

Surprising as it may seem, this is actually not only poker pro Eric Froehlich's first WPT final table—it's his first WPT cash.  The two-time WSOP bracelet winner does have 16 WSOP cashes to his credit, along with more than $1.1 million in live tournament winnings.  The 25 year-old burst onto the poker scene when he won his first WSOP bracelet at the age of 21, making him the youngest bracelet ever at the time.

His bracelet record has since been eclipsed by Steve Billirakis, but Froehlich has been on a mainstay on the live tournament scene for the past four years.  Like many other young players, Froehlich was part of the Magic: The Gathering scene prior to getting into poker.  He was sidelined from sports after an injury and passed time with Magic and subsequently poker.  He was a quick study to both games and dropped out of the University of Virginia to play poker full time in 2005.

Biggest Live Tournament Cash: $73,590
Career Earnings in Live Tournaments: $676,374

WPT Bio: Curt Kohlberg

Level 23: 20,000-40,000, 4,000 ante

Seat 2
Curt Kohlberg
1,086,000 (4^th in chips)

Curt Kohlberg may not be an instantly recognizable name, but he has been a presence on the tour since the early days of the WPT.  The MIT grad has done everything from working on Wall Street to selling concert t-shirts to playing competitive racquetball. He fell into professional poker in the late 1990s and racked up wins at the World Poker Finals, a WSOP final table and a 5^th place finish at the WPT's Grand Prix de Poker in Paris during Season 4.

Kohlberg has kept relatively quiet over the past few days here at Foxwoods, but his aggressive style of play has kept players very aware of his presence at the table.

Biggest Live Tournament Cash: $165,200
Career Earnings in Live Tournaments: $678,749

WPT Bio: Lee Markholt

Level 23: 20,000-40,000, 4,000 ante

Seat 1
Lee Markholt
264,000 (6^th in chips)

One of the two former WPT champions amongst our final six, Markholt, known amongst the poker community as "Seattle Set," logged his 20^th career WPT cash here at Foxwoods, giving him the record for most in the money finishes by an individual.  Prior to Foxwoods, Markholt was tied for the record with Barry Greenstein at 19 cashes each.  Markholt once held the dubious distinction of having the most WPT cashes without a final table, but he broke that streak with a victory at the World Poker Challenge in Season VI.

His WPT winnings are in excess of $1.1 million and he has a Professional Poker Tour win worth $225,000 to his credit as well.  His total career winnings exceed $2.2 million and he has a whopping 60+ career cashes to his credit. He is based out of Eatonville, Washington where he lives with his wife and kids.

Biggest Live Tournament Cash: $468,315
Career Earnings in Live Tournaments: $2,252,591

Stacked Final Table at WPT Foxwoods

Level 23: 20,000-40,000, 4,000 ante

WPT Foxwoods World Poker Finals, Day 5 Recap

By BJ Nemeth

It took less than five hours to play down from ten players to six at WPT Foxwoods, which is about what we expected. The three players who started the day with the most chips made it through, which isn't that surprising. That group includes Matt Stout, former WPT winner Cornel Andrew Cimpan, and Soheil Shamseddin. The surprise is that short stack (and former WPT winner) Lee Markholt also survived the day, though he is still extremely short heading to the televised final table. 

The unfortunate bubble boy was Kenna James, who started the day fourth in chips but took two hits to his stack in Hands #38 and #44. Kenna was never able to bounce back, and his stack steadily dwindled until Hand #87 he moved all in with 66 and Soheil Shamseddin called with J10. The board comes AKJQJ, and Soheil took the pot with trip jacks. Kenna James earned $132,855, but missed out on the TV final table. 

Recent WPT winner Steve Brecher busted in eighth place, when he moved all in with A3 on a short stack and ran into Soheil's KK. Adam "Roothlus" Levy was also short when he moved all in with A9 and ran into Soheil's QQ. As further proof that Kenna, Brecher, and Roothlus were short stacks, Soheil busted all three of them and still isn't the chipleader.

The chipleader likely would have been Matt Stout, if his pocket aces had held up in Hand #21. Soheil raised, Stout called, Curt Kohlberg called, and Tom Dobrilovic moved all in from the big blind. Soheil moved all in over the top, and then Stout (chipleader at the time) moved all in over the top of them both. Kohlberg folded to make it a three-way all-in situation. 

Stout said, "I got what I'm s'posed to got," as he showed AA. Dobrilovic had KK, and Soheil had 99. If Stout's aces held up, he would have busted two players and had 4 million in chips -- far more than twice as much as anyone else. As it happened, Soheil flopped an open-ended straight draw, and hit it on the turn to knock Stout out of the chip lead and knock Dobrilovic out of the tournament.

Here are the seating and chip counts for the six players who advance to tomorrow's WPT Final Table: 

1.  Lee Markholt  -  264,000
2.  Curt Kohlberg  -  1,086,000
3.  Eric "Efro" Froehlich  -  1,014,000
4.  Cornel Andrew Cimpan  -  3,691,000
5.  Soheil Shamseddin  -  2,954,000
6.  Matt "Allinat420" Stout  -  1,579,000

This is one of the best final table lineups the WPT has seen in a long time. Markholt (2008 WPT Reno) and Cimpan (2009 WPT Commerce) are both former WPT winners, and both Kohlberg and Shamseddin have made WPT final tables before. Froehlich became the youngest player in history to win a WSOP bracelet in 2005 (that record has since been broken -- twice), and became the youngest player to win two WSOP bracelets in 2006. Stout is a popular online pro with nine cashes at the WSOP and three here on the World Poker Tour.
More complete bios on all six final tablists will be posted later this evening.

The WPT Final Table begins tomorrow (Tuesday) at 4:00 pm ET. Return to WorldPokerTour.com for complete live coverage of every check, bet, call, raise, and fold, along with chip counts after every hand.

WPT Final Table: Official Chip Counts

Level 23: 20,000-40,000, 4,000 ante

Here are the official chip counts and seating assignments for tomorrow's WPT Final Table:

Seat 1.  Lee Markholt  -  264,000
Seat 2.  Curt Kohlberg  -  1,086,000
Seat 3.  Eric "Efro" Froehlich  -  1,014,000
Seat 4.  Cornel Andrew Cimpan  -  3,691,000
Seat 5.  Soheil Shamseddin  -  2,954,000
Seat 6.  Matt "Allinat420" Stout  -  1,579,000

Hand #87: Kenna James Eliminated in 7th Place ($132,855)

Level 23: 20,000-40,000, 4,000 ante

Hand #87  -  Kenna James moves all in from middle position for 125,000, and Soheil Shamseddin calls with J10. Kenna shows 66, and he'll need it to hold to stay alive. 

The board comes AKJQJ, and Soheil wins the pot with trip jacks. Kenna James is eliminated in seventh place, earning $132,855.

The final six players are counting their chip stacks and filling out their WPT bio sheets. We'll have official chip counts and seating assignments soon.