Dietrich Fast is still on target for his second WPT title just three weeks after winning his first after an epic day at the felt here in Austria was concluded when just six players remained.
Zoltan Gal may have the chip lead, but it was the German Fast who dominated much of the day’s play, in commanding form from starting an overnight leader to end the day second in chips after many more examples of his dominance in this tournament, which itself is hot on the heels of him winning the L.A. Poker Classic.
partypoker WPT Vienna Final Table
Seat 1 – Zoltan Gal – 1,826,000
Seat 2 – Dominik Bosnjak – 665,000
Seat 3 – Matt Davenport – 1,274,000
Seat 4 – Dietrich Fast – 1,594,000
Seat 5 – Vlad Darie – 1,180,000
Seat 6 – Georgios Zisimolpoulos – 485,000
With three WPT Champions Club members in the hunt for the trophy when play commenced, all three looked well poised until just a couple of hands ruined Julian Thomas’ chances right around the time John Gale suffered a horrid beat at the hands of his former heads-up nemesis in Dietrich Fast. No soon after Gale and Thomas left the field did play speed up, and we raced to the final nine players who gathered around one table to play down to six.
Play definitely slowed down when we reached the lead-up to the final table, with 103 hands in total from nine players until the close of play in the midnight hour.
First to leave the one-table party was Matias Ruzzi, who had survived on his wits for hours when short-stacked, and was unlucky to simply run out of chances to double-up when his 
couldn’t catch Giorgios Zisimopoulos’ 
.
With eight players remaining, several players seemed destined for the door only to haul themselves back into contention. Sixteen hands later, Michael Schmalnauer’s luck ran out when his 
was sucker-punched by Zisimopoulos’ 
after the latter hit two pair on the turn.
Seventh place to our final six took nearly seventy more hands, and only happened when Jeremy Nock was incredibly unlucky, his 
was busted by Zoltan Gal’s 
. That gave us our final six players, and sets up a final table to remember, kicking off at 2.30pm local time tomorrow.
The live stream with hole cards up can be found on Twitch.tv/WorldPokerTour, as partypoker ambassador, WPT Champions Club member, and Raw Deal analyst Tony Dunst and Simon Trumper will provide commentary.
Here’s the interview with LAPC champion Dietrich Fast, who’s going for his second title tomorrow, just weeks after winning his first WPT.