WPT Foxwoods

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Hot Like Fire: WPT Foxwoods Day 4

The sun came out for Day 4 of the WPT Foxwoods World Poker Finals today as 33 was whittled down to just 10 and a little light was shed on who will make up Tuesday's six-man final table.

Full Tilt's Mike Matusow and 2008 WSOP Heads-Up World Championship fourth-place finisher Jonathan Jaffe shone out as the neck-and-neck chip leaders when play got rolling just after 12 p.m. EST, and although it was a wild romp through the Connecticut forest all day, that's exactly where things stand heading into the tournament's penultimate day Monday.

Jaffe's share of the lead was lost early on when he paid off 2006 WSOP bracelet winner Jon Friedberg's shove with an overpair to a raggedy board holding not much more than a gutshot. Things got even worse when Kevin Saul started another miracle comeback, getting it in against Jaffe with queens against fours to double through him.

But as feared and respected players like Phil Ivey, Gavin Smith, Will "The Thrill" Failla and eventually Saul hit the bricks, Jaffe played solid poker to get back to where he once belonged.

Hero to zero.

Friedberg didn't waste the early gift from Jaffe, using his newfound wealth to get into a $1.5 million pot with Ron Kirsh soon after. Kirsh had kings and even though it looked like he knew what he was up against, he still rolled the dice against Friedberg's aces.

The aces held, Friedberg was on top and Kirsh was gone soon after. But that was about as good as it got for Jon.

He bluffed off a half million chips to Anthony Newman, putting him in the lead, then ran flopped top set into the joint. By the time the day's final level rolled around he was short, shipped it bad and went out a disappointing 11th.

Although he never took the lead, Bill Gazes' day was almost a mirror image of Friedberg's. He doubled with jacks against big slick to get within a double and a bit of the leaders, then knocked out both the 15th- and 16th-place finishers, bringing his stack into the $1 million range.

However, the Full Tilt Pro's fire was put out by none other than Jonathan Little when he reraised an open from David Pham, then called a FieryJustice shove for almost two-thirds of his stack with A Q.

Mikey's got a big pair.

Little had kings and had little trouble fading the three-outer on his way to up near the top of the leaderboard. Meanwhile, Gazes said his goodbyes a little later, handing the rest over to Matusow by running big slick into the Mouth's rockets.

David Pham had his usual Dragon-like day here at Foxwoods, breathing fire all over the WPT dreams of several players.

First he picked up aces when Charles Marchese had kings to get it up over $600k; then, once he'd played his way close to $1 million in chips, he flipped a coin with Carl Restifo for Restifo's tournament life and came out on the winning end of a $1 million pot.

Restifo had queens, Pham had big slick and an ace in the window was all he would need.

Dimitri Haskaris had a roller-coaster of a day, getting up close to $1 million in chips before dumping most of those in a mindless play against Borgata prelim stud Jack Schanbacher. Both made the final 10, but Haskaris will start with just $945,000 when things get going on Day 5, considerably less than Schanbacher's $1.6 million, which puts him as close to Matusow ($1.85 million) and Jaffe ($1.78 million) as anybody.

Suddenly a new man.

Newman held on to most of his stack and will start the day with almost $1.4 million, ahead of Pham 's $1.2 million.

Meanwhile, New Yorker Charles Marchese stayed the course and will bring $963k to the party ahead of Tom Ngyuen, who rode the thrill ride as well today, rising up over $1.2 million only to end on $615,000.

A quiet day from Henry Doiban has him coming in as the short stack on $591,000.

Things will get going from Foxwoods at around 12 p.m. EST Monday and with just four eliminations until the TV final table is set, we could be looking at a sub-five-level day.

PL.com will be there from start to finish, if only to see whether the Dragon really can breathe fire, if FieryJustice is truly what we're all in for and if the Mouth will ever close.