Brett Shaffer Leads a Strong Final Table at Bellagio

Dec 20, 2014

Brett Shaffer
Photo: Brett Shaffer leads the final six players with nearly 4.3 million in chips.

Day 5 of the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic ended in a painful beat for WPT Champions Club member Jared Jaffee, who watched as his flopped straight lost to a runner-runner full house. Jaffee was eliminated on the TV bubble, and misses the chance to add a second WPT title to his resume.

At the start of the day, there were 33 players remaining from a huge field of 586 entries. Six of them were members of the WPT Champions Club, and with nine players remaining, there were still four of them still in contention to join the elite club of players with two WPT titles.

But the poker gods weren’t kind to former WPT winners, as Will Failla (ninth place), Keven Stammen (eighth place), and Jared Jaffee (seventh place) all fell short of the televised WPT Final Table.

The other two WPT Champions Club members who started the day but couldn’t finish were Anthony Zinno (23rd place), and Daniel Negreanu (25th). Negreanu won this event 10 years ago on his way to winning the Season IV WPT Player of the Year.

At the start of this tournament, there were 13 DraftKings qualifiers, and one of them — Brandon Adams — made a strong run to reach the final three tables, finishing 22nd to earn $36,947. As for the Skrill Last-Longer Contest, Chane Kampanatsanyakorn made it all the way to 11th place ($65,368), outlasting 71 other players wearing a Skrill patch. Kampanatsanyakorn’s Skrill patch earned him his buy-in back — $10,400.

Here are the official chip counts for tomorrow afternoon’s televised WPT Final Table, scheduled to begin at 4:00 pm PT:

Seat 1.  Tobias Reinkemeier  –  3,625,000  (60 bb)
Seat 2.  Ryan Julius  –  940,000  (15 bb)
Seat 3.  Ryan Fee  –  3,055,000  (50 bb)
Seat 4.  Garrett Greer  –  3,260,000  (54 bb)
Seat 5.  Mohsin Charania  –  2,415,000  (40 bb)
Seat 6.  Brett Shaffer  –  4,290,000  (71 bb)

And here’s the remaining prizepool that they’re playing for:

1st:  $1,477,890*
2nd:  $869,683
3rd:  $562,736
4th:  $383,684
5th:  $272,842
6th:  $218,842

* First prize amount includes a $15,400 seat into the season-ending WPT World Championship.

The BLUFF.com WPT Ones to Watch were announced earlier this week — seven players that have been selected as potential breakthrough players. Garrett Greer is one of those players, and he has already proven himself by making this final table. Greer hopes to become the first Ones to Watch to win a WPT title.

The televised WPT Final Table is scheduled to begin at 4:00 pm tomorrow (Saturday). There will be no live stream, but you’ll find complete hand-for-hand coverage right here, along with updated chip counts after each hand.

Photos by Joe Giron.

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