The FInal Push
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Two days and twenty levels of play have pared a field of 1,663 players by 99%. Today the final 16 will return to play out the rest of the tournament and crown a champion.
The man at the top of the counts is no stranger to that position. Carter Phillips hit the poker scene last year, just missing out on an LAPT final table in Chile before making two final tables at EPT Barcelona in September -- including winning the Main Event for a payday worth roughly $1.2 million. Since then he burnished his credentials with a final table at the Tunica WSOP Circuit event, where he took fifth place.
But there are 15 other players in the field all with their eye on the gold bracelet. The most formidable of those opponents may very well be Craig Bergeron, an online player of some renown who fourth place at EPT Deauville earlier this year and who will start the day 6th in chips.
We expect to reach the final table of six in about 3-4 hours of play. After that, it's anybody's guess how long this thing will take to play out. It could be four hours; it could be eight hours. However long it takes, PokerNews will report the action live from the floor until the final river card is dealt.
We'll start things off at 2:30pm local time, in about 35 minutes.