The Season XVII WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic field at Bellagio is down to 45 from a field of 1,001 and in the lead is Mo Arani. From an upper-echelon stack of 520,000 at the start of Day 3, Arani surged up the leaderboard post-dinner break and bagged 2.2 million. Right behind Arani, and in second place for the second consecutive night, is 2015 Main Event champion Joe McKeehen. McKeehen put 2.030 million in his bag and is in a prime position to make his fifth WPT final table.
Arani sat on the direct right of the start of Day 3 chip leader Calvin Anderson and despite having a formidable foe on his left, Arani managed to excel. It was a hand against Anderson in the second-to-last hand of the night that put Arani in the tournament driver’s seat.
“It feels pretty good,” said Arani of being chip leader. “I’ve never had a chip lead on Day 4 of a WPT. My day went pretty well. The start of the day was pretty tough because Cal, the chip leader, was on my left. So every time somebody opened, he’d flat or three-bet, so I just had to tighten my range a little bit. And then as the day went on, I got a little more in the flow of the game and things got better and better.”
Arani owns $1.1 million in tournament earnings with three WPT cashes and a WPTDeepStacks final table this season in Houston accounting for a fair portion of the total.
The money bubble burst in the third level of play and the field started to dwindle in a hurry afterward. Andjelko Andrejevic busted Nikolai Sears on the bubble to put the remaining 126 players in the money.
Following the bubble, Champions Club members hit the rail with Anthony Zinno (122nd), Brian Altman (114th), Paul Klann (111th), Justin Young (108th), Tony Ruberto (104th), Martin de Knijff (102nd), Mike Leah (97th), Taylor Paur (86th), Joe Hachem (85th), Mohsin Charania (74th), Erik Seidel (69th), Antonio Esfandiari (66th), and Andrejevic (46th) falling by the wayside. Ruberto added 50 points in the Hublot WPT Player of the Year race and is up to 1,850 on the season.
Those from the Champions Club still involved in the Five Diamond action include Darren Elias (730,000), Mike Del Vecchio (595,000), Keven Stammen (410,000), Simon Lam (295,000), and Ravi Raghavan (270,000). Raghavan is looking for his second consecutive WPT final table after taking sixth at the WPT Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open. He also the last of the past Five Diamond champions remaining. Ryan Tosoc’s title defense ended just before the bubble.
There are plenty of familiar names not among the Champions Club looking to make their way there from the top of the leaderboard including Patrick Mahoney (2.005 million), John Dibella (1.825 million), Andrew Lichtenberger (1.66 million), Sorel Mizzi (1.255 million), and Isaac Baron (1.065 million).
Anderson was among the chip leaders for most of the day but slipped late to bag 650,000. Although bagging less than he started with, don’t expect Anderson to be hungry for chips on Day 3. In fact, Anderson is on his 12th day of a fast that can last up to 30 days.
Day 4 starts at 12 p.m. and continues for as many 90-minute levels as it takes for the field to get down to the WPT final table of six.
Tune in to WPT.com for all Five Diamond coverage as the record-breaking event nears its conclusion.
Photography by Jamie Thomson / PokerPhotoArchive.com
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